“Crisis” (MA) ***

WRITER/director/producer Nicholas Jarecki delivers a 118-minute dramatic thriller telling three stories in which the common element is opioid pain relievers.

In a way, it’s also a message movie. Gary Oldman heads the cast list playing medico Tyrone Brower working as a consultant advising a drug company about to release a new non-addictive pain-reliever to supersede oxycodone. 

Armie Hammer plays US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Jake working undercover to take down a gang of Armenians preparing to sell a big scrunch of drugs on the US and Canadian markets. Evangeline Lilly plays Claire, an architect and reformed drug user determined to track down and take down the people who supplied the drugs that killed her teenaged son.

These themes could individually support their own movies. Jarecki deftly intertwines them into this single film. It works well enough but sometimes gets a bit bitty.

The film canvasses the competing interests involved with the big money from a single product capable of doing harm. Dr Brower has come to the testing lab to try to explain why the test rats are pigging out on the new product then dying. 

Jake is dealing with Mother (Guy Nadon) who’s the Armenians’ conduit into the American market. Claire simply is out of her depth in the dangerous game that she has decided to play.

The film’s dramatic structure examines subordinate issues (especially university thraldom to possible sources of funding). Cliches that might have clogged the plot are thankfully absent or brief. Final judgement – a potboiler saved by moral moments alleviated by changes of dramatic pace.

At all cinemas

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