Three stories about the world of opioids collide: a drug trafficker arranges a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S., an architect recovering from an OxyContin addiction tracks down the truth behind her son’s involvement with narcotics, and a university professor battles unexpected revelations about his research employer, a drug company with deep government influence bringing a new “non-addictive” painkiller to market.
“Crisis” stars Oscar-winner Gary Oldman as Dr. Tyrone Brower, a charismatic college professor enjoying tenure at Everett, a fictitious private university in Detroit. As with many colleges these days, decreasing public support pushes Everett to seek regular corporate funding injections in order to keep the doors open and pay faculty salaries.
Along those lines, Dr. Brower earnestly performs a substantial amount of lucrative pharmaceutical research for a company called Northlight that brings Everett large grants, much to the delight of Dean Geoff Talbot (Greg Kinnear). All goes well for eight years until the latest batch of experimental trials fails to yield positive results – in this instance for the highly potent painkiller called Klaralon, a soon-to-be-approved drug primed to take significant market share away from a competitor, the maker of Oxycodone.
A second plotline involves Armie Hammer as DEA agent Jake Kelly, who infiltrates drug organizations manufacturing counterfeit opioids for street use. Sadly, at the same time, his own sister Emmie (Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny) struggles vainly against opioid addiction, much to Jake’s frustration.
As an undercover agent, Jake acts as a go-between for his Armenian contacts that fund purchases from an underground manufacturer. Michelle Rodriguez as DEA Supervisor Garrett appears sympathetic to Jake’s efforts, but her resources and support from the agency limit their options.
The third narrative emerges with Evangeline Lilly as Clair Reimann, an architect recovering from OxyContin addiction, who unexpectedly learns of her son’s untimely death from an overdose of a street version of Fentanyl. Clair harbors remorse for both her own past legal addiction and her son’s inexplicable demise. At first devastated, then exhausted, and finally curious, she hacks her son’s cell phone and retrieves his contacts. After tracking down her son’s low-level dealer, she stumbles onto the same illicit drug manufacturers that Jake is pursuing, leading to interesting consequences. Working her way up the food chain, all the while set on revenge, she inadvertently compromises Jakes’ hard work.
The science of opioids often proves enlightening, if also depressing. In early trials, for example, Klaralon appeared not to breach the blood-brain barrier, thereby making it a non-addictive treatment for pain. Unfortunately for Northlight Pharmaceutical, Brower’s lab experiments demonstrated exactly the opposite – that Klaralon, with a potency an order of magnitude greater than morphine, activates the brain’s pleasure centers, inducing the mice to consume the drug until they died.
Though Brower never meets Jake or Clair, his activities in the background demonstrate the easy manner in which corporations pursuing profits, and academic institutions pursuing funding both press ahead single-mindedly, despite the implications of their actions on society. When Dr. Brower writes up his conclusions and takes them forward, he realizes he can no longer have things both ways.
Brower recommends – to the shock of his handlers at Northlight – that his test results be presented at an upcoming conference and reviewed by a panel of other academics. Immediately, Northlight Pharmaceuticals pulls its funding for the Klaralon research, but at the same time presents Brower with a generous grant to continue his other work, in essence, a payoff. In exchange for nearly a million dollars in new funding, Northlight representative Bill Simmons (Luke Evans) asks Brower to sign a revised, more restrictive non-disclosure agreement. When he refuses, Northlight starts a whisper campaign, disparaging Brower’s previous research.
Later, after a class lecture, Dean Talbot also pressures Brower to sign the new agreement and shelve the test results. When Brower pushes back, Dean Talbot complains that their job at the university is to be educators, not grapple with big pharma, putting the conflicts of interest on full display. More pressure on Brower arrives in the form of a resurfaced, long-past charge of sexual harassment, jeopardizing his prized tenure, again unless he signs the non-disclosure. The storyline proceeds smartly from there.
“Crisis” deftly probes tacit institutional power juxtaposed against its impact on real people trying to get by from day-to-day. Written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki – who plays a key role as Jake’s DEA partner – the film aspires to tell a tale not unlike “Traffic,” but with fewer moving parts. Well-acted and cast, “Crisis” serves up a lean narrative about the insidious nature of opioid product development and profits and the debilitating addiction that follows in its wake.
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