Star-studded Crisis loses its way
Crisis (R16, 118 mins) Directed by Nicholas Jarecki Reviewed by James Croot ★★★
Asolidly cast movie that might not have seen a cinema screen were it not for the pandemic, this evokes memories of noughties’ ‘‘hyperlink’’ tales like Babel, Crash, 21 Grams and Traffic.
Inspired by real-life, Crisis follows three narrative strands, all of which relate to America’s ongoing opioid crisis. The event that kicks things off is the capturing of a young man on the United States-Canadian border, as he attempts to smuggle a large amount of fentanyl into the land of maple and mounties.
It has repercussions, not only for Armie Hammer’s DEA agent Jake Kelly’s massive sting operation, but also for Detroit mother and recovering oxy-addict Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly). To her horror, her beloved teenage son David (Billy Byrk) is inadvertently caught up in a drug lord’s desire to tie up any loose ends connecting him to the arrest.
Meanwhile, renowned university professor Dr Tyrone Brower (Gary Oldman) feels forced to put his reputation and career on the line when his lab discovers some terrifying results in the latest round of testing a much-vaunted pharmaceutical.
Klaralon has been touted as a non-addictive painkiller, but when researchers expand the test parameters out by a few days, their mice display disturbing and, ultimately, fatal behaviour. Raising the alarm, Brower is dismayed when the drug company and his university bosses dismiss his concerns, the former determined to press ahead with plans to put Klaralon on the market.
A big business conspiracy, police procedural and revenge thriller all rolled into one, Crisis certainly has its moments.
Writer-director Nicholas Jarecki, whose Arbitrage took an impressive deep-dive into the world of hedge funds, certainly knows how to draw drama out of complex topics and terrific performances out of his cast.
But in trying to weave together this triumvirate of tales, something doesn’t quite gel – and it’s not just that only two of them intersect.
Time-spent in one area means others are more thinly sketched, with the consequence that none of the plotlines are truly absorbing or compelling. And although it all bubbles along nicely towards a thrilling, crowd-pleasing finale, the end result is disappointingly derivative and predictable, right down to the showdown setting.
While highlighting one very real crisis, Jarecki’s film uncovers another, ongoing one – originality in American cinematic storytelling.