Review: ‘Paradise Highway,’ starring Juliette Binoche, Frank Grillo and Morgan Freeman

September 11, 2022

by Carla Hay

Hala Finley and Juliette Binoche in “Paradise Highway” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Paradise Highway”

Directed by Anna Gutto

Culture Representation: Taking place in Mississippi, the crime drama film “Paradise Highway” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A tough-talking trucker find herself on the run from the FBI and trafficking gangsters when she rescues an orphaned, adolescent girl, who is a human trafficking victim and has killed one of the human traffickers.

Culture Audience: “Paradise Highway” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Juliette Binoche and Morgan Freeman, but the movie is substandard and frequently dull and has too many implausible plot elements.

Morgan Freeman and Cameron Monaghan in “Paradise Highway” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche is unfortunately miscast as a gruff truck driver who goes on the run with a child trafficking victim in “Paradise Highway,” a tedious and tacky movie that is ineptly made on every single level. And just because another Oscar-winning star (Morgan Freeman) is in this horrible film doesn’t make it any better. Freeman has been doing a lot of bad and forgettable movies in this late stage of his career. In “Paradise Alley,” he plays yet another grizzled and world-weary law enforcement agent who always seems to know more than everyone else around him. Yawn.

Written and directed by Anna Gutto, “Paradise Highway” rips off too many clichés from other movies about a jaded person with questionable morality who’s suddenly forced to take care of an orphaned child while going on the run from people who want to kill both of them. And you know what that means: The cynical adult ends up bonding with the kid in a parental way, after many arguments and near-death experiences. (See 1980’s “Gloria,” starring Gena Rowlands, which was a groundbreaking movie for this concept.)

Viewers are supposed to believe that Binoche—an elegant French actress who is usually in much-classier movies—is a tough-talking French Canadian trucker named Sally, who’s secretly involved with drug smuggling in the United States, where Sally currently lives. Sally (who is a bachelorette with no children) communicates by CB radio with other female trucker friends named Rose (played by Veronica Ferres), Pattie (played by Desiree Wood) and Dolly (played by Dianne McNair-Smith). Their CB radio talk looks like something out of a Lifetime movie version of the trucking lifestyle. The beginning of “Paradise Highway” shows a montage of these female truckers talking to each other by radio, which makes it all too predictable what will happen later in the movie when Sally gets into serious trouble.

Why is Sally a secret drug smuggler? She’s doing it because her younger brother Dennis (played by Frank Grillo), who’s in prison on drug trafficking charges, is being threatened by his drug trafficking cronies. These thugs say that Dennis will be killed by their allies in prison unless Dennis enlists someone on the outside of prison to replace Dennis. Dennis turned to Sally to be his outside proxy. He tells Sally to do whatever he asks her to do, or else he says he will be murdered in prison.

One of the first signs that “Paradise Highway” is an idiotic movie is that even though it’s mentioned that Dennis and Sally grew up in the same abusive household, Dennis and Sally have very different accents from different countries. Dennis has an American accent from the East Coast, whereas Sally’s accent is French Canadian. The movie gives no explanation for this accent discrepancy. And it doesn’t help that Binoche is never completely believable as a rough-and-tumble French Canadian trucker.

One day, Sally goes on what she thinks will be a typical drug shipment pickup in Mississippi. Instead, to her horror and shock, she finds out that she is being tasked with trafficking a girl who has been kidnapped and is about 11 or 12 years old. “No way,” Sally says, “I don’t take people.”

One of the traffickers in charge is a sour-faced woman named Claire (played by Christiane Seidel), who has this to say to Sally in response: “No way I can promise what will happen to your brother if you don’t take the girl where she fucking needs to go.” Sally reluctantly takes the girl, whom Sally later finds out is a runaway orphan named Leila (played by Hala Finley). Leila says that because she ran away from an orphanage, the chances are low that anyone is looking for her.

Before Sally goes to the pre-determined location, she gets a call from Dennis, who has smuggled a disposable burner phone into prison. Sally angrily tells Dennis that human trafficking isn’t part of their deal, but Dennis tells her just to go through with the plan, or else he’ll get killed. Throughout the movie, Dennis keeps calling Sally on a burner phone, which makes you wonder how he’s able to have all of these secret phone conversations in a maximum security prison.

And so, Sally agrees to go along with the plan to drive Leila to a human trafficker named Paul McKinney (played by Jim Dougherty) at a pre-determined location in a remote wooded area. From the beginning, Leila shows that she’s not going to go quietly, and she puts up a fight, so she has to be bound and gagged. When they get to the dropoff location, Sally unties Leila to get ready to hand Leila over to Paul.

Things descend into chaos when Leila takes a shotgun that Sally had in the truck and shoots Paul dead. In a panic, Sally and Leila flee the scene. Most of “Paradise Alley” is about Sally and Leila trying to hide from the criminals and law enforcement officials who are looking for them. Sally is afraid to go to another state, so they stay in Mississippi, where “Paradise Highway” was filmed.

It isn’t long before the FBI gets involved, because the FBI has been investigating this trafficking ring, which now has one of its key members murdered. FBI special agent Finley Sterling (played by Cameron Monaghan) is on the case. But he’s essentially being told what to do by FBI retiree Gerick (played by Freeman), who now works as a consultant for the FBI.

Gerick and Finley have a stereotypical movie relationship of an older cop working with a younger cop. The older cop treats the eager-to-please younger cop as naïve and stupid, while the younger cop tries to prove the older cop is misjudging and underestimating the younger cop. The older cop in this cliché partnership is also usually more willing to bend the rules, while the younger cop is more “by the book.”

It isn’t long before Sally is identified as the prime suspect in Paul’s murder and is exposed as being involved in the trafficking ring. And so, Gerick and Finley lead law enforcement’s hunt for Sally. They soon find out that Leila is with Sally, who could also be arrested for kidnapping and human trafficking. Claire and her partner in crime Terrence (played by Walker Babington) are also in hot pursuit of Sally, with the intention of killing Sally and Leila, who both know too much about the trafficking ring.

“Paradise Highway” has a scene where Sally confides in Leila about why she is so loyal to Dennis. Sally explains that when she and Dennis were children, their widowed father would physically abuse them. Dennis got the worst of their father’s beatings and would protect Sally as much as possible from these physical assaults. Their father also sexually abused Sally. Sally says of her loyalty to Dennis: “Now, it’s my turn to take care of him.”

One of the dumbest things about “Paradise Highway” is that Sally’s getaway vehicle stands out for being a green-and-white semi truck, but she uses this huge truck the entire time that she and Leila are trying to “hide.” Sally also makes no effort to hide or disguise her license plates. In other words, using the truck makes her much easier to find than if she used a regular, non-descript vehicle, but the movie unrealistically shows Sally being able to dodge her pursuers for an extended period of time in this massive truck.

Why can’t law enforcement use helicopters to find Sally and her truck? The movie offers this silly excuse: Gerick goes to a Mississippi sheriff (played by Bill Luckett), who’s portrayed as a hick, to use the department’s helicopter. The sheriff tells Gerick that his department doesn’t have a helicopter because the department can’t afford a helicopter. It’s all so ridiculous because the FBI has the money to get its own helicopter and doesn’t need the permission of an underfunded sheriff’s department.

“Paradise Highway” is filled with too many scenarios of bungling law enforcement and the relentlessly moronic decisions made by Sally, who never thinks of a way to find another vehicle to use. The movie’s action scenes are poorly staged. The editing in the movie is amateurish.

All of the cast members give mediocre or lackluster performances, although Finley, in her portrayal of troubled Leila, is better than most of the cast. It’s not enough to save this abysmal movie, which has a very corny and unrealistic ending. Simply put: “Paradise Highway” leads to a hellish road of lousy filmmaking.

Lionsgate released “Paradise Highway” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on July 29, 2022. The movie was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 6, 2022.

Review: ‘Best Sellers’ (2021), starring Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza

January 11, 2022

by Carla Hay

Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza in “Best Sellers” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

“Best Sellers” (2021)

Directed by Lina Roessler

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state and in various U.S. cities, the comedy/drama “Best Sellers” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After inheriting her father’s financially struggling book publishing company, a woman in her 30s convinces a reclusive, elderly author to come out of retirement to publish another book and go on a book tour with her.

Culture Audience: “Best Sellers” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Michael Caine and anyone who likes predictable dramedies set in the literary world.

Aubrey Plaza and Michael Caine in “Best Sellers” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

Just a like a hack novel with a stale formula, “Best Sellers” is an uninspired comedy/drama that limps along until the movie’s very predictable end. Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza play mismatched characters, but their pairing as actors is also a misfire. It’s another movie about two clashing personalities who are stuck working together, with the added discomfort of taking a road trip together. “Best Sellers” does absolutely nothing that’s creative or engaging in this cliché-ridden story, although die-hard fans of Caine and Plaza will probably like this film more than most people.

Directed by Lina Roessler and written by Anthony Grieco, “Best Sellers” further typecasts Caine and Plaza in the types of roles they’ve been doing in their most recent movies. Caine plays a cranky eccentric, while Plaza plays a pouty, sarcastic misfit. They also don’t appear to have any emotional investment in their characters. If they don’t seem to care, then why should audiences?

A movie about two different people who start off disliking each other can be fun to watch if there’s genuine chemistry between the cast members and witty dialogue. Unfortunately, “Best Sellers” is so lackluster and predictable, even the cast members seem bored with everything. The movie also tries to bridge a gap between the traditional world of print book publishing and the non-traditional world of social media publishing, but the scenarios are just too forced and phony.

In “Best Sellers,” Caine plays Harris Shaw, a curmudgeonly widower who lives as a recluse in Westchester, New York. (“Best Sellers” was actually filmed in the Canadian province of Quebec.) Harris is so “old school,” he still uses a typewriter. Harris’ claim to fame is his first novel, titled “Atomic Autumn,” which was a bestseller more than 50 years ago. Since then, he hasn’t written another book.

Harris has become such a recluse, some people wonder if he’s still dead or alive. When the phone rings in his home and someone asks for Harris, he answers the phone and barks: “He’s dead! Bugger off!” Harris’ wife Elizabeth has been dead for an untold number of years, but grief over her death is not the reason why Harris hasn’t written a second book. And it’s not because he has writer’s block.

Harris just seems to be afraid of not being able to surpass the success of his first book. It’s unknown what Harris has done to make a living in the years since “Atomic Autumn” was a hit. Whatever money he made from the book seems to be long gone, and he’s in dire financial straits, because Harris is seen burning a foreclosure notice with a cigarette lighter while he’s home alone in his misery.

Meanwhile, the New York City-based book company that published “Atomic Autumn” is also experiencing financial problems. Joseph “J.F.” Stanbridge (played by Luc Morissette) is the company’s founder, but he’s currently a widower in a nursing home. The responsibility of running Stanbridge Publishing has fallen to his only child, Lucy (played by Plaza), who is desperate for the company to get another best-selling author.

Things aren’t going so well for a Stanbridge-published young-adult fantasy book called “Dragons of Orion” that Lucy had high hopes would be a hit. The book is a flop that has gotten a negative review in The New York Times. And it’s getting a lot of criticism on social media.

As an example, Lucy looks apprehensively at an adolescent book reviewer who has a YouTube channel called Tracey’s Book Club, which has more than 4 million subscribers. The YouTuber (played by Charli Birdgenaw) snarks in a video: “‘Dragons of Orion’ is dumb. All caps DUMB. It’s trying to be ‘Harry Potter,’ but it’s not even a bad ‘Twilight.'”

The top-selling author at the moment is Drew Davis (played by Veronica Ferres), who is a writer that Stanbridge Publishing wouldn’t be able to afford. Lucy pouts as she tells her assistant Rachel Spence (played by Eileen Wong): “We need our own Drew Davis … We need relevant writers to make us relevant again.”

And so what does Lucy end up doing? She puts her time and resources into a has-been writer (Harris Shaw), whose only book was published more than 50 years ago. Why? Because she finds Harris’ old contract and discovers that he owes Stanbridge Publishing one more book. Lucy thinks that Harris still has enough name recognition that his second book could be a hit.

Rachel is highly skeptical of this idea. She warns Lucy that Harris has a reputation of being “a drunk and a madman” who “shot his assistant once” because Harris mistook this male assistant for a bear. Lucy and Rachel track down Harris at his current address. And since Harris doesn’t like to communicate with anyone and this is a very phony-looking movie, Lucy and Rachel don’t just show up at his house unannounced. Lucy and Rachel break into Harris’ house when they think no one is there.

Of couse, Harris is in the house during the break-in, and he pulls a gun on Lucy and Rachel. Lucy and Rachel explain the reason for this unnanounced visit. And it just so happens that Harris does have a novel that he’s been working on for years. There’s some hemming and hawing as Lucy tells Harris that it’s in his contract to hand over the novel to her company.

Harris doesn’t want to feel pressured into finishing the book, but since he and Lucy need the money, the manuscript is completed. A clause in Harris’ contract says that he has the choice of having the manuscript edited by whoever is in charge of the company, or he has to agree to promote the book on a book tour. Harris lets it be known how he feels about his work being edited when he snaps at Lucy: “I’ll be damned if I let the incompetent hands of nepotism molest my words, Silver Spoon!”

And you know what that means: Harris and Lucy go on the road together and get on each other’s nerves. “Best Sellers” consists mostly of this tedious road trip, where Lucy tries to market Harris on social media, but he resists. Many of the tour stops draw an embarassingly low turnout for Harris. Lucy and Harris also find out that people who go to Harris’ book readings/signings show up out of mild curiosity, but most of them don’t buy his new book.

The name of Harris’ second book is “The Future Is X-Rated.” That title alone could’ve been mined for numerous hilarious scenes if the filmmakers of “Best Sellers” were more creative with the contents of the book. Instead, people who watch “Best Sellers” will be hard-pressed to remember what Harris’ new book is supposed to be about after they finish watching the movie. In other words, “Best Sellers” fails to convince viewers that Harris is a talented author.

Instead, “Best Sellers” stoops to littering the movie with cheap gimmicks, such as Harris having temper tantrums, instigating dumb arguments, and getting violent. On separate occasions, Harris urinates on copies of his new book in front of an audience, and then he commits a despicable act of arson that won’t be described here. “Best Sellers” has an entirely lazy way of letting Harris off of the hook for the crimes he commits during this moronic movie.

“Best Sellers” also has a stereotypical portrayal of a New York Times book critic. His name is Halpern Nolan (played by Cary Elwes), a pompous blowhard who seems like a Truman Capote wannabe. Predictably, Harris despises Halpern. And because Harris is a loose cannon, he gets in a fist fight with Halpern.

The clichés don’t end there. Lucy is supposed to be a “poor little rich girl” because not only could she lose her family fortune but she’s also emotionally damaged because of the suicide of her mother. It’s supposed to make Lucy more sympathetic to viewers, but Lucy still comes across as irritating by all her eye-rolling and whining. She’s not as problematic as Harris, but Lucy isn’t a smart as she thinks she is. Lucy doesn’t really know what she’s doing and seems very unqualified for her job.

Another cliché: Lucy has to contend with a shark-like publisher rival named Jack Sinclair (played by Scott Speedman), who might as well wear a T-shirt that says “Lucy Stanbridge’s Love Interest.” Lucy is annoyed by Jack, but she’s also attracted to him. Jack knows it too. And you know what that means in a hackneyed movie like “Best Sellers.”

In addition to being plagued by boring and witless scenarios, “Best Sellers” has very drab cinematography, where too many scenes are poorly lit. It might have seemed like an inspired idea to bring Caine and Plaza together in a movie, but their comedic styles and personas don’t mesh well at all. “Best Sellers” is a movie that could have worked well with an improved script and better casting decisions. As it stands, “Best Sellers” is a dud without much appeal and would’ve been better off permanently shelved.

Screen Media Films released “Best Sellers” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on September 17, 2021 The movie was released on DVD on November 2, 2021.

Review: ‘Crisis’ (2021), starring Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer and Evangeline Lilly

March 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

Greg Kinnear and Gary Oldman in “Crisis” (Photo courtesy of Quiver Distribution)

“Crisis” (2021)

Directed by Nicholas Jarecki

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Detroit and Montreal, the dramatic film “Crisis” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: The lives of three different Americans—a scientist, a Drug Enforcement Agency undercover officer and a recovering opioid addictall collide when a new “non-addictive” opioid prescription drug called Klaralon is being rushed to market.

Culture Audience: “Crisis” will appeal primarily to people who like to watch formulaic dramas about the “war on drugs” that have some ridiculous plot developments.

Armie Hammer and Evangeline Lilly in “Crisis” (Philippe Bosse/Quiver Distribution)

It seems as if the dramatic thriller “Crisis” (written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki) was made to be a “cautionary tale” about how big pharmaceutical companies are just greedy, corporate drug dealers in the so-called “war on drugs.” However, the movie becomes so enamored with showing enmeshed storylines of the three main characters that it all just becomes a tangled mess that tries to tie up loose ends neatly in a very unrealistic way, in order to have a cliché movie ending. The acting performances are solid, but the movie’s writing and direction are bloated and messy.

The story goes back and forth between the perspectives of three Detroit people, who all end up being connected to each other in some way in the opioid crisis. It’s a crisis that has fueled demand for opioids, whether they’re sold as legal prescriptions or through the illegal drug trade. Much of the story revolves around a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sting to take down a cartel of Armenian gangsters in Montreal who traffic drugs to and from the U.S. and Canadian border. You can tell already that this movie is more convoluted than it needs to be.

Dr. Tyrone Brower (played by Gary Oldman) is a scientist (presumably in biochemistry, because the movie never says), who teaches at an unnamed university in the Detroit area. This university has had a long-term business relationship with a corporate pharmaceutical company called Northlight, which has hired the university to do research on drugs that Northlight wants approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Tyrone is in charge of these research studies, and he prides himself on having high ethical standards.

Tyrone’s latest research study for Northlight is for a painkiller called Klaralon, which is supposed to be the world’s first “non-addictive” painkiller. Of course, there are caveats to using Klaralon. It’s only “non-addictive” if taken in the correct doses. And there’s some cockamamie explanation later in the story that Klaralon won’t become addictive if patients stop taking Klaralon after 30 days.

It’s an example of a poorly thought-out screenplay, because it doesn’t factor in the reality that most patients who are prescribed painkillers need to take the drugs for longer than a month. And no legitimately greedy pharmaceutical company would want to market a drug with such short-term usage. The goal would be to keep people on these drugs as long as possible to make the maximum amount of money from selling these drugs. And there are plenty of plot holes and other illogical missteps in this movie, which ruin any credibility that “Crisis” might have intended to look like a gritty drama that’s supposed to be taken seriously.

The second person in this trio of main characters is Jake Kelly (played by Armie Hammer), a hardened DEA officer who’s undercover in the Canadian city of Montreal. He’s invested a lot of time in a DEA sting to bust an Armenian gang that has been cornering the market with illegal OxyContin sales and is trying to do the same for Fentanyl. The leader of this drug cartel is named (try not to laugh) Mother (played by Guy Nadon), and his right-hand goon is named Guy Broussard (played by Éric Bruneau). “Crisis” writer/director Jarecki portrays Stanley “Stan” Foster, who is Jake’s closest and most-trusted DEA colleague in the sting.

Jake has a personal reason for wanting to bust this drug-dealing cartel: His younger sister Emmie (played by Lily-Rose Depp) is a needle-using opioid addict. During the course of the story, Emmie starts off in rehab but then ends up leaving rehab early to go back to her junkie lifestyle. You can easily predict the scene in the movie where Emmie goes missing, Jake finds her strung-out in a drug house, and he forces her to leave while she has a temper tantrum.

And speaking of drug addicts, the third person whose perspective is shown in “Crisis” is that of single mother Claire Reimann (played by Evangeline Lilly), a recovering opioid addict who’s still struggling with staying clean and sober. Claire is shown in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, where she confesses to the attendees about her urge to use opioids and how it affects how she raises her 16-year-old son David (played by Billy Bryk).

Claire says, “I can’t even sit through a hockey game without even thinking about it. I would like to be a better person for him. And I’m working on that.” David’s father is not seen or mentioned in the movie, so it’s implied that he’s an absentee father who has no contact with Claire and David.

The university that Tyrone works for relies heavily on funding from Northlight to keep the school financially afloat. Therefore, Tyrone is under pressure to deliver lab results that will be pleasing to Northlight. However, there’s a problem with the trial studies for Klaralon. The mice that were tested in the experiments died after 10 days of being administered the drug. The trial period was extended to 30 days, and led to the same results. There’s also evidence that Klaralon is more addictive than Fentanyl.

Tyrone finds out this bad news at the worst time, because Northlight is soon going to present the university’s research on Klaralon to the FDA for approval to sell the drug. In good conscience, Tyrone refuses to lie and pretend that Klaralon is safe to sell to the general public. He meets with Northlight executives Dr. Bill Simons (played by Luke Evans) and Dr. Meg Holmes (played by Veronica Ferres), who are portrayed as soulless and money-hungry. Tyrone tells them that the drug is dangerous and not ready for FDA approval, and asks them for more time to do more lab tests.

Not surprisingly, the Northlight executives refuse and even come up with a ludicrous idea to sell Klaralon anyway. Despite all the signs that it’s a deadly drug, the Northlight executives justify this rush to market for Klaralon, by saying that the company won’t be responsible for any deaths if they include a warning that the drug cannot be taken for more than 30 days. Tyrone thinks it’s a terrible idea and isn’t afraid to say so.

After this meeting, Bill tries to entice Tyrone to sign a “modified” lab report with a “corporate donation” of $780,000. Of course, it’s really a bribe to sign a falsified report. Tyrone knows he’s being offered a bribe, but he doesn’t want to alienate Northlight, so he asks for a little more time to look over the agreement.

When Tyrone tells his boss Dean Talbot (played by Greg Kinnear) about this ethical problem, Tyrone is surprised and disappointed when the dean sides with Northlight. Dean Talbot essentially tells Tyrone that if he doesn’t sign off on the report and take the money, Northwell will cancel its contract with the university, and it will ruin the university financially.

Dean Talbot also says that just because some mice died in the lab experiments for Klaralon, that doesn’t mean that people will die from taking Klaralon too. Anyone with basic knowledge of science might be yelling at their screen at this dumb part of the movie. And the dean reminds Tyrone that the university isn’t responsible if people become addicted or die from the drugs that the university researches.

Dean Talbot also strongly hints that Tyrone will be fired if he doesn’t do what he’s told. Tyrone can’t afford to lose this job because his much-younger wife Susan (played by Mia Kirshner) is pregnant with their first child together. He’s also at an age (in his 60s) where it would be difficult to find work somewhere else. And Tyrone loves his job and doesn’t want to leave.

“Crisis” tries to do too much during its nearly two-hour running time. The story goes off the rails when tragedy strikes Claire and she turns into a vigilante. With the help of a private investigator, Claire finds out some information to try to solve a mystery. And then, she starts acting as if she’s a one-woman DEA crime-busting team. She goes back and forth between the U.S. and Canadian border. And a lot of nonsense ensues. It’s just all so ridiculously portrayed in the movie.

There are inevitable shootouts that are also badly handled in the movie. And for a powerful drug cartel led by a guy named Mother, they have a lot less people handling their business than they would in in real life. But that’s because this is a low-budget independent film, so apparently the filmmakers probably didn’t want to hire any more actors because they spent a great deal of their budget hiring an Oscar winner such as Oldman.

Oldman’s Tyrone character is supposed to be the “moral center” of the story. He’s the type of professor who tells his students: “Without us crazies, where would the world be?” As far as his big ethical dilemma about Klaralon, he might as well wear a sign that says, “Whistlebower.” Hammer and Lilly are serviceable in their roles, which don’t make much of an impression in this fairly generic movie.

Michelle Rodriguez has a small role as Jake’s DEA supervisor Mia Garrett, who doesn’t do much but scowl when she hears some of the updates that Jake gives her. Scott Mescudi, also known in real life as rapper Kid Cudi, has a much smaller role as Ben Walker, an investigator for the FDA. These two characters don’t have memorable personalities. Even the chief villain Mother is a banal stereotype of the type of elder “mob boss” that’s been seen in dozens of other crime-related dramas.

“Crisis” tries to be somewhat preachy about the far-reaching effects of the opioid crisis and the “war on drugs.” Claire is supposed to represent the “everyday person” who’s affected by this crisis. But by having her do some outlandish and very unrealistic things in this story, it actually makes her character and this movie less relatable to everyday viewers. Claire also crosses paths with Jake in some of the movie’s most preposterous scenes.

“Crisis” would have been a better movie if it focused only on Tyrone’s storyline and was a drama inspired by 1999’s “The Insider,” the Al Pacino/Russell Crowe movie about a whistleblower in the tobacco industry. “Crisis” could have been an intriguing story, because it’s rare for a dramatic movie to give an in-depth look at any corruption that goes on behind-the-scenes when drugs are being tested for FDA approval. Instead, “Crisis” overstuffs the plot with a run-of-the-mill “let’s take down a drug cartel” storyline that so many other movies have done before and done much better.

Quiver Distribution released “Crisis” in select U.S. cinemas on February 26, 2021, and on digital and VOD on March 5, 2021.

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