Crisis Review: An All-Compassing, Underwhelming Drug Epic
February 25, 2021
The brutal opioid crisis in America deserves an all-encompassing epic, and that is what filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki is determined to deliver with
Crisis. And while his new film
, which he both wrote and directed, certainly has the cast and the scope to succeed, there is not quite enough meat on its bones. In short, Jarecki’s narrative reach exceeds its grasp. Despite all that’s going on, there is precious little to latch on to.
The obvious (and perhaps lazy) cinematic comparison here is Steven Soderbergh’s
Traffic, the celebrated drug war drama from the year 2000. Both films introduce multiple plot threads that all connect somewhere along the drug-trafficked chain. In
Review: Crisis takes a muddled look at opioid addiction detroitnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from detroitnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
2/26/2021
Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer and Evangeline Lilly star in Nicholas Jarecki s multi-narrative look at the opioid crisis.
Setting out to be the
Traffic of the opioid era, Nicholas Jarecki s
Crisis presents a trilogy of storylines whose tendrils involve everyone from big-pharma execs to undercover cops to addicts at various stages of despair.
Sprawling and serious but not nearly as involving as it should be, the pic Jarecki s sophomore feature, after 2012 s similarly topical
Arbitrage may well attract interest for unwanted reasons, as one of the films co-lead Armie Hammer completed before his current social media-stoked scandals hit. The actor s stiff, uninteresting performance here is a reminder of how spotty his filmography has been to date.