In March I reviewed for TMB the new crime drama, “Crisis”, a harrowing and thought-provoking investigation of the American opioid crisis, at this link:

https://www.themovieblog.com/2021/03/a-national-crisis-2021-difficult-to-overplay/

This month I talk with the film’s Writer/Director, Nicholas Jarecki.

What is the inspiration behind “Crisis”?

Filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki

I had some friends who had been involved with opioids with some very negative effects. I lost a friend to opioid abuse. This wasn’t some street junkie. This was our friend. It wasn’t (until) many years later when I started researching pharmaceutical company activity in the opioid area that I understood that the level of addictive property wasn’t fully disclosed. That got me very interested.

I enjoy that look behind the scenes of power. Should there have been more oversight here by regulatory agencies or the government? Did these companies do everything they could have done to make sure the product was safe?

What are your thoughts on Big Pharma, both in terms of the health benefits these companies bring to society, and the industry’s complicity in the opioid crisis?

What is Big Pharma?  What is anything?  It’s just a collection of people.  The question is “What is the culture?”.  Is it “Let’s help people?”.  Obviously pharmaceuticals have incredible benefits.  I want ’em.  They’re gonna save my life.

Every for-profit organization’s objective is profit.  But how do you get there?  What is your ethos?  It’s such an important question in the medical realm.  Are you pushing a product that is the very opposite of the underpinning of what the culture should be?

There’s hundreds of Big Pharma companies.  They’re not all the same.  It’s so specific to the behavior of the individuals within that organization.

What’s next?

I’m working on (a new film) now. It’s a great story of a woman, a real American hero, fighting a lot of issues within the military. It’s another (story of a) person against the system.

I invite you to enjoy all of my film reviews as “The Quick Flick Critic”, continually updated at https://thequickflickcritic.blogspot.com