Painkiller 2023

Miniseries about Tempts to bring the Sackler family to justice. Well worth a single watch but not something I'd rewatch.

Interesting things I learned are:

Pharma reps were paid based on mg sold, not tablets. This they pushed doctors to keep increasing patient dosages.

Oxy is stronger than morphine, which is something reserved for end of of life care. By designing it as time-released, it was sold as safe and nonaddictive.

Oxy said it lasts 12 hours but it didn't it lasted more like 8. Meaning that regular users would experience withdrawal twice a day. Purdue knew this.

The mice in trials exhibited enormous signs of addiction while the human trials were a complete mess. In one, a third of the patients left it. In both human trials, most patients weren't making it through the night without a serious return of pain.

The FDA check was held up as major concerns were flagged. After exorbitant amounts of attention including gifts, Purdue whisked Curtis Wright away for 3 days and when they returned the FDA approval stated oxy "is believed" to be less addictive than other opiates. Only time that phrase appears on FDA form. Wright later worked for Purdue.

The first State DA to bring charges against Purdue was later hired as a consultant and this changed his tube.

Very interesting story, something that needs to be told. Too bad is tecnically flawed by a very confused direction: the intertwining of the stories is often too caotic, and some direction choices are questionable, at least. Screenplay is not bad, even if -as I said before- the interweaving of stories are confusing, and clearly some characters are gimmicks, too much on the nose expedients for the narration. Also, the last scenes are honestly pure nonsense: I'll avoid spoilers, but let me say I felt them forced and totally unnecessary. Felt like the crew couldn't find a decent closure, so pointed to something catartic to dissolve the rage in a positive sense of karmic justice. (you'll understand what I mean when you'll see the big Sackler writing crumble, too obvious metaphor for the destruction of the heritage of the name)

But personally I can forgive all those flaws because of the relevance of the theme: what happened with Purdue is a shame: a country that allow all this and can't do better than a slap on the wrist of the responsibles of so many deaths, is not a democracy.

I can't believe it: how can american people take actions on conspiracy theories, but won't on something real like this?

Decent series that was interesting with some decent performances but it had a number of issues that held it back. Each episode starts with real life family members of people who died from taking Oxy. They point out that the show is based on real events but has been dramatised then then speak about the real loved one they lost to the drug. I think this goes some way to explaining the aims of the show in that it wanted to give some justice to the victims and their families as well as make the Sackler family look as bad as they possibly could (beyond just showing what they did which is bad enough).

The director seemed to go for a very choppy back and forth, repetitive style of editing that maybe gives a sense the mind set of an addict and the turmoil of their lives. In making the Sacklers look like insane buffoons they have used some fairly comical situations that aren't funny (or actually meant to be) because of the subject matter. It doesn't even qualify as black humour because that is typically meant to illicite laughter. Getting a loveable actor like Broderick to play Richard Sackler added to this mix of maniacal silliness they wanted to imbue the character with. I personally feel that it would have been a more intelligent and impactful show if they had tried to convey the true horrors of the man rather than repeatedly trying to malign him through the use of creative license.

Whilst there were many good moments throughout the show, the show being "based on a true events" didn't mean they felt the need to base it on reality.

The final couple of minutes seemed to be completely gratuitous depicting scenes that are pure fantasy. Whilst I get the angle they were going for, I felt that it moved the show further from the reality it was based on.