crisis movie review guardian

Convergence: Courage in a Crisis review – nine stories from the Covid frontlines

This pandemic film delivers emotional punch, but the documentary’s desire for a global message blunts its impact

“I can’t breathe” went mainstream as a rallying cry during the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, just as respiratory difficulties of a different kind were beginning to exact an increasingly frightening toll across the world. This panoramic and often moving Netflix documentary about Covid-19 courageously tries to draw a straight line between the pandemic and the underlying social inequalities it flushed out everywhere. But as it spans nine different stories in eight countries, it ends up too diffuse to make telling political points and ends up uncomfortably close to the kind of globetrotting montages Roland Emmerich disaster flicks wheel out to show shared planetary ordeals.

Convergence certainly has a knack for emotive sweep, and there’s no doubting the courage and self-sacrifice on display in many quarters here, from a Wuhan volunteer ferrying medical workers around the ground-zero city in early 2020, to the reformed São Paulo criminal pulling comatose slum-dwellers out of the favelas. Her segment, and that of the Miami doctor trying to ensure Florida’s homeless are protected, are where the outrage burns fiercest. They bring home, in the awful, stricken faces of the asphyxiated, how the virus has further cut into the structural vulnerabilities that appear with depressing consistency in different societies.

There are some cheering outcomes, not least how these fresh injustices seemed to give Black Lives Matter heightened legitimacy, as well as the story of Hassan Akkad , the Syrian refugee and volunteer hospital cleaner in the UK who forced a U-turn on the health-worker bereavement scheme .

Convergence, though, often prefers to express its indignation in abstractions, such as letting WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus denounce racism, while indulging in grand gestural optimism. Which lets the Covid policy failures of negligent politicians like Johnson, Trump, Modi and Bolsanaro off the hook. Perhaps the Michael Moore s and Alex Gibney s of this world are needed to conduct that kind of inquest, but even in terms of its attempted emotional cross-section of the pandemic, Convergence spreads its net too wide. That much is clear from the closing montage of assorted global citizens singing Lean on Me in unison. Didn’t we excoriate celebs for that kind of thing?

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Two-decades-old it might be, but the high-stakes ecosystem that Steven Soderbergh brought to life with his masterful “Traffic” still maintains its enduring appeal and quality. In that regard, it’s impossible to get through even a few minutes of writer/director Nicholas Jarecki ’s latest thriller “Crisis,” which unfolds amid the ongoing and deadly opioid epidemic, without repeatedly hearing echoes of Soderbergh’s far superior work that similarly pursues the ins and outs of a drug trade operation through the perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders.

Sadly though, when compared to the heightened sense of style, risk-taking energy, and tight and intricate script of “Traffic” that rarely spoon-feeds its morals to the audience, Jarecki’s film is quite underwhelming and not smart enough—too black-and-white in its principles, too second-hand in its visual aims, and exasperatingly scattered in its construction without the kind of first-rate editing Stephen Mirrione exercised in “Traffic.” While it’s not exactly a dull watch thanks mostly to a star-studded ensemble cast, “Crisis” will likely become one of those titles you will see once, only to file it away with indifference or a mild “it’s fine” verdict.

And this is the frustrating part: it’s almost as if this harmless, well-intentioned movie wants to waste away its potential and be just okay and forgotten. Among what contributes to its paint-by-numbers feel is frankly Jarecki’s flatness as a writer, which, to a lesser degree, also handicapped his respectable 2012 financial thriller “ Arbitrage .” Somehow, none of the “this is a public health crisis”-type outbursts of his morally searching leaders or devastating cries of his grieving civilians land here memorably or with urgency. Instead, the personalities of “Crisis,” whose lives eventually yet sloppily intertwine, are an array of tropes used as mouthpieces to deliver only the most familiar dialogue lines and character beats you’d expect from a didactic movie.

The basic story follows three main plotlines and branches out (sometimes, incomprehensibly) to additional pastures from there. There’s the secret agent Jake (a reliably severe Armie Hammer , who’s currently storming a real-life crisis of his own after some of his recently-surfaced messages), a DEA officer working undercover alongside menacing drug lords to bring their operations down, while also keeping an eye on his troubled junkie sister ( Lily-Rose Depp ) addicted to Oxy. There’s also Claire ( Evangeline Lilly ), a successful architect, a recovering addict, and a loving mother who takes matters into her own hands after apathetic police forces rule out her deceased son’s suspicious overdose as an accident. Delivering a surprisingly authentic performance despite her underwritten part, Lilly breathes some much-needed life and humanity into a film that otherwise feels utterly emotionless.

And finally there’s the most muscular narrative thread of “Crisis” that somewhat compensates for its weaknesses elsewhere. In it, Gary Oldman convincingly plays Dr. Tyrone Brower, a college professor who needs to get his priorities straight once a high-profile big pharma drug his department is paid to test out proves dangerous, even fatal. At times, you wish that this “ The Insider ”-like whistle-blowing yarn with complicated real-world implications involving the FDA and the corrupt healthcare industry was deepened, smoothened, and expanded to be the only focus of “Crisis.” Unfortunately, Jarecki leaves it surface-level, throwing even more half-realized figures up against the wall to see which ones would stick. But between a cookie-cutter bigwig baddie insipidly code-named “Mother,” various vapid and offensive references to some evil Armenian guys, a number of one-note kingpins as well as various cops, and pharmaceutical executives inside a machination that expands over to Canada, most of them don’t. In fact, you might have a hard time remembering exactly what function major names like Greg Kinnear , Luke Evans , and Michelle Rodriguez serve in the movie minutes after watching it.

In a lot of ways, “Crisis” is a classic example of a movie that wants to be a little bit of everything, only to add up to a much lesser version of something you keep waiting to see. In the aftermath, it’s regrettable that the title card at the end—which provides the audience with some disturbing worldwide opioid stats—feels like the only worthwhile takeaway from this overcrowded tapestry.

In theaters on February 26; available on digital platforms on March 5.  

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

• Gary Oldman as Dr. Tyrone Brower
• Armie Hammer as Jake Kahane
• Evangeline Lilly as Claire Reimann
• Greg Kinnear as Dean Geoff Talbot
• Michelle Rodriguez as Supervisor Garrett
• Luke Evans as Bill Simmons
• Lily-Rose Depp as Emmie Kelly
• Kid Cudi as Ben Walker
• Veronica Ferres as Meg Holmes
• Sam Worthington as Bill Simons
• Nicholas Jarecki as Stanley Foster
• Nicholas Jarecki

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• Raphael Reed

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‘Crisis’ Review: Finding a Fix

Nicholas Jarecki’s new crime drama, which examines the opioid epidemic from different angles, is well-paced but often strains credulity.

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By Ben Kenigsberg

Applying the panoramic approach of Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic” to the subject matter of, well, “Traffic,” “Crisis” examines the intractability of the opioid epidemic through a three-pronged narrative. The writer-director, Nicholas Jarecki, who made the engrossing, “Bonfire of the Vanities”-ish thriller “Arbitrage” (2012) , awkwardly pretzels a checklist of social problems into the form of a drama.

The issues — from addiction itself to the flawed incentives at institutions that might prevent it — demand a more expansive treatment. Compared with the HBO series “The Wire,” which covered similar material, almost any pretzel would seem too small.

The most suspenseful thread in “Crisis” involves Jake Kelly ( Armie Hammer , who has recently been accused of sending bizarre messages on social media and other troubling behavior; he has denied wrongdoing ). Jake is introduced as a drug importer but quickly revealed to be an undercover D.E.A. agent planning a bust that straddles both sides of the United States-Canada border. His sister (Lily-Rose Depp) is an addict herself.

In almost the flip side of that story, Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly), a hockey mom and recovering opioid addict, turns sleuth and potential vigilante after a tragedy related to her son.

Finally, Gary Oldman plays Dr. Tyrone Brower, a professor who challenges a longtime corporate patron, a pharmaceutical company, on a claim that a new painkiller is not addictive. Turning whistle-blower means competing with Big Pharma’s immense resources.

Hopping between Detroit and Montreal, the film is well-paced but often strains credulity. Jarecki brings Claire out of character to juice the plot, and Dr. Brower’s fate is resolved in an unconvincing coda at odds with the preceding cynicism.

Crisis Rated R. Violence and drug use. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.

‘Crisis’ Review: 20 Years After ‘Traffic,’ Opioids Get a Similar Treatment

Armie Hammer and Michelle Rodriguez play federal agents trying to keep painkillers off the street in Nicholas Jarecki's fact-based drug-war thriller.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Some problems can’t be solved with a prescription. Attempting to do for the opioid epidemic what “Traffic” did for the war on drugs, Nicholas Jarecki ’s “Crisis” sets up three separate storylines — a grieving mama with a grudge (Evangeline Lilly), an undercover DEA operative with an imminent bust ( Armie Hammer ) and a compromised research professor with a conscience ( Gary Oldman ) — and proceeds to braid them together for maximum melodrama.

It’s compelling, relevant filmmaking designed to cover all aspects of this ever-escalating national-health issue, thrown for a loop by an unforeseen crisis of its own: the very public scrutiny of Armie Hammer’s own alleged addictions (which, ironically, could actually boost the film’s profile). Dense but never difficult to follow, “Crisis” is crammed with screaming matches, shootouts and plenty of those bleary-eyed scenes where desperate relatives try to process the impact of drug abuse on their loved ones — which is to say, there’s no shortage of engaging and/or wrenching material here.

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But like Jarecki’s 2012 debut, financial-crisis morality play “Arbitrage,” one gets the impression that the helmer has bitten off more than he can chew as he strains to compress a thorny subject into a tight two-hour package. It’s ambitious, sure, but more focused indies (such as “Little Woods” and “Beneath the Harvest Sky”) have taken a relatively nuanced approach in recent years, whereas “Crisis” deals in broader stereotypes. Remember, “Traffic” first existed in miniseries form, and it took a master, Steven Soderbergh, experimenting with sophisticated cross-cutting (by Y2K standards, at least, since the film’s color-coded strategy can feel too hand-hold-y today), to reduce all those threads to a coherent 147 minutes.

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A limited series might have been the way to go with “Crisis” as well, since the feature treatment deals primarily in plot, leaving limited room for the characters to develop beyond the clichés that define them. Even so, a talented yet over-amped cast does its best to flesh out the stereotypes it has been handed, and Jarecki shows a kind of confidence behind the camera that masks the film’s more generic aspects. (Lilly’s Claire Reimann, for example, is presented as an ex-oxycodone addict, whose internal struggle is too easily flushed down the sink and forgotten.)

“Crisis” opens with an action scene, as a camouflaged drug runner is ambushed by police in a helicopter and on snowmobiles while trying to smuggle fentanyl across an unpatrolled stretch of the Canadian border. Jarecki keeps the momentum going — sometimes simply by using dynamic camera moves to energize otherwise static situations — throughout the first act as he introduces his three lead characters.

Back in Detroit, after the arrest, Jake Kelly (Hammer) does damage control with a pair of “Armenian power gangsters,” then risks blowing his cover to visit his strung-out sister (Lily-Rose Depp) in rehab. Across town, Claire copes with her recovery in a survivors’ meeting, only to realize how close to home the illicit opioid trade hits when her son goes missing. And in the halls of a private university, charismatic professor Dr. Tyrone Brower (Oldman) impresses in the classroom, but may have compromised his integrity in the lab by conducting drug trials directly sponsored by a monster pharmaceutical company.

When Tyrone’s assistants discover that a new wonder drug, Klaralon, is three times more addictive than other painkillers on mice (and fatal in excess), he’s torn by what to do with the findings. The movie sends a smarmy Big Pharma exec (Luke Evans) to make the conflict of interest even more generous (he offers Tyrone’s department a $780,000 grant in exchange for enhanced nondisclosure terms). Such shady practices do happen, of course, but Jarecki tends to oversimplify, putting ultimatums in characters’ mouths that would be more menacing if implied.

It’s not so different for the trailer-length explanation Hammer’s character gives his supervisor (Michelle Rodriguez) of the “pill mills” Jake has established, leaning on corrupt doctors to write unnecessary prescriptions to homeless recruits. (Jarecki, who plays Jake’s DEA partner, sets the montage to the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” for a Scorsese-like kick.) Such scams are troubling, but not especially creative to anyone who’s been paying attention to the escalation of the opioid crisis in recent years — a situation whereby painkillers have themselves become killers, and enforcement is complicated by the institutional deep pockets that profit from both the illicit and intended use of their inventions.

Here, it’s hard not to compare “Crisis” with older brother Eugene Jarecki’s 2012 documentary “The House I Live In,” a hard-hitting look at flaws in America’s drug policy. That film touched on the way enforcement differs depending on whether the addicts are Black or white, grappling with the complexity of many of the issues that “Crisis” presents as clear-cut moral dilemmas. Sure, it can be goose bump-inducing to hear Oldman sputter, “This is the biggest public health crisis since tobacco. We can’t just turn a blind eye!” to his school’s donation-grateful dean (Greg Kinnear). But a development involving an old sexual harassment charge dug up to discredit Tyrone feels reductive, as do many of the movie’s side intrigues: a dangerous list of police informants, a regulatory whistleblower service at FDA headquarters, the fate of Claire’s son.

Jarecki’s tendency to streamline subplots doesn’t make “Crisis” any less engaging, giving everything a pop, Michael Crichton-esque feel. Back in the ’90s, the best-selling author built his career around boiling down big ideas into terse, two-page chapters, setting up mini-cliffhangers in a way that kept readers pawing forward. The structure of “Crisis” feels similar, as Jarecki gives brisk updates on each of the three characters while alternating quickly enough between strands that audiences can’t quite get ahead of the predictable plot. It’s an attention-deficit technique that speaks to another Big Pharma problem (the over-prescription of drugs like Ritalin), but that’s an issue for another movie.

Reviewed online, Los Angeles, Feb. 17, 2020. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 119 MIN.

• Production: A Quiver Distribution release, presented with LOD Prods., Bideford Prods., in association with Green Room Films, Martingale Pictures, Flying Horse Prods., Construction Film, Tuesday Films, Burn Later Prods., Elevation Pictures, Such Content, Paradise City Films, Caviar. Producers: Cassian Elwes, Nicholas Jarecki. Executive producers: Gary Oldman, Douglas Urbanski, Michael Suppes, Tony Hsieh, Mohammed Al Turki, Noah Segal, Lisa Wilson, William Rosenfeld, Sam Slater, David Bernon, Samuel Reich. Co-executive producers: Kean Cronin, Robert Kapp, James Skotchdopole. Co-producers: Jonathan Vanger, Karl Richards.
• Crew: Director, writer: Nicholas Jarecki. Camera: Nicolas Bolduc. Editor: Duff Smith. Music: Raphael Reed.
• With: Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Lily-Rose Depp, Guy Nadon, Veronica Ferres, Scott Mescudi, Indira Varma, Martin Donovan, Mia Kirshner, Nicholas Jarecki.

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The star-studded Crisis is a languid thriller with delusions of social consciousness: Review

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

Crisis , the latest film from writer-director Nicholas Jarecki , yearns to be a socially conscious thriller laced with moral cynicism and taut suspense in the vein of Silkwood and The China Syndrome . But it has more in common with dubious Best Picture winner Crash , given its all-star cast and generically predictable intersecting stories.

The film (in theaters Friday, on VOD March 5) follows three stories rooted in the opioid crisis. There's Jake Kelly (a sullen, imposing Armie Hammer ), an undercover DEA agent who takes everything extremely personally thanks to his sister's own addiction, focused on bringing down a fentanyl-smuggling operation based in Canada. Running in parallel to his story, university professor and scientist Dr. Tyrone Brower ( Gary Oldman ) makes a startling discovery about the Big Pharma company funding his research. Caught between them is Claire Reimann ( Evangeline Lilly ), a recovering oxycodone addict embroiled in uncovering her son's role in a narcotics scheme.

Crisis makes an effort to build tension through its crisscrossing story lines. Dr. Brower vacillates between his ethical obligation to do what's right and professional pressure to remain silent, while both Jake and Claire home in on the same target, an opioid kingpin. But it never actually feels dangerous, its moments of violence more de rigueur than shocking.

Despite a stacked cast, which also includes Greg Kinnear , Luke Evans , Michelle Rodriguez , Lily-Rose Depp , and Indira Varma , the performances are wooden, weighed down by a stiff Hammer and a sleepwalking Oldman, the latter of whom seems to be biding his time in between flashier awards bait.

The women suffer most grievously, with Lilly trapped in a female version of a Liam Neeson role with less character development. She makes a noble effort to imbue her grieving vigilante mother with more humanity and a deeper emotional well than much of the rest of the cast, but it's frustrating to watch her play a woman defined only by her relationship to her son. Other female characters here have a similar lack of depth, their roles reduced to cartoonish villains or nearly wordless stand-by-your-man" tropes.

Oldman has perhaps the most to work with, as his character wrestles with protecting his job and his research lab over the potential cost to human lives his findings might imply. But audiences can easily guess what choice he'll make. His story line comes with a frustrating attempt to drum up empathy for his situation via making him a victim of "cancel culture," bringing an old sexual harassment claim into the weapons Big Pharma uses against him. Considering that Oldman has been dogged by domestic abuse allegations from the 1990s (which he has denied), it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to watch him enact this parable of a misunderstood man unjustly accused.

Jarecki tries to do too much with too little, and the film's attempt at exposing the sobering cost of the opioid crisis while also offering a satisfying thriller falls short of the mark. Crisis adds nothing new or enthralling to a catalog of better films on the issue (see: Traffic, Sicario, etc.). Its biggest crisis is that it's a thriller with no thrills. Grade: C+

Related content:

• Watch Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer take on the opioid epidemic in Crisis trailer
• Elizabeth Chambers says she supports 'any victim of assault or abuse' amid Armie Hammer controversy
• Evangeline Lilly apologizes for her 'dismissive, arrogant' coronavirus stance

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Crisis is a dramatic thriller that addresses the opioids epidemic from multiple points of view. A star-studded ensemble cast weaves together three separate storylines to a climactic juncture. Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki ( Arbitrage ) illustrates the root causes of opioid addiction from corporate production and criminal trafficking to the deadly results on city streets. The individual chapters are well-acted and sobering. But the film falls short in a predictable third act that becomes contrived and sanctimonious.

Crisis takes place in Detroit, Michigan, and across the Canadian border in Montreal. We're introduced to Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly) at an opioids support meeting. A divorced architect with a teenage son (Billy Bryk), Claire is a recovering oxycodone addict. Armie Hammer co-stars as DEA Agent Jake Kelly, he's been undercover for a year infiltrating a murderous fentanyl ring. Rounding out the primary cast is Dr. Tyrone Bower ( Gary Oldman ), a university professor who's been researching a groundbreaking new pharmaceutical painkiller.

Claire returns home from work to find her son missing. Unable to get any real traction from the police, she decides to contact his friends. Dr. Bower and his graduate assistants discover that the new, supposedly non-addictive wonder drug, is just as lethal as its predecessors. He informs his department head (Greg Kinnear) and the drug manufacturer's corporate liaison (Luke Evans) of the findings; who then try to discredit him. Meanwhile, personal issues and an unexpected wrinkle disrupt Jake Kelly's massive drug deal. As Dr. Bower, Claire, and Jake struggle to find answers, their paths are inexorably destined to collide.

Crisis establishes genuine intrigue in the first act. The opioid devastation is presented with unvarnished ugliness. Nicholas Jarecki illustrates the link from junkies and pill mills to the entities profiting from addiction. The drug cartels are put on the same footing as the corporate producers. Dead bodies and heartbroken families have no impact on the bottom line. Profit has zero conscience. The three lead characters learn that difficult lesson as their lives are destroyed.

Crisis loses focus when it tries to tie the threads together. Initially good exposition falls apart with absurd contrivances. The film uses random dumb luck and opportune coincidences to bring the characters together. A critical scene, where two leads meet for the first time, is completely unbelievable. It's an easy way out of the elaborate set-up. Nicholas Jarecki does this to make a declarative statement on opioids, and what dark lengths they drive good people to. That viewpoint is crystal clear from the beginning. Jarecki needed a better written resolve. The ending feels obvious and preachy.

Evangeline Lilly and Armie Hammer are very good here. Their character arcs have the dramatic depth that shows the personal toll of opioid addiction. The film gives equal time for the helicopter perspective of the epidemic, but it's the ground level stories that resonate. Every overdose and criminal act leaves a wake of despair for those who pick up the pieces. Crisis will be compared to Steven Soderbergh's Traffic . It's not nearly in that league, but paints a vivid picture of the human cost. Thus earning a "see" recommendation. Crisis is produced by a consortium led by Les Productions LOD and Bideford Productions. It will be released theatrically on February 26th by Quiver Distribution, and then domestic home video a week later on March 5th.

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> Crisis (2021) Film Review

Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson

When films like Steven Soderberg's Traffic used to take on the drugs trade, it was generally heroin or cocaine that was the 'bad guy' and now Nicholas Jarecki's latest turns its attention to the more everyday but equally deadly addiction caused by American's prescription opioid crisis. It's a big subject and Jarecki certainly doesn't lack ambition or good intent - as evidenced by his previous financial thriller Arbitrage .

He comes at the drug idea from multiple angles, although this time he struggles to make its dustier, more corporate elements fully gel with its more traditional thriller and melodrama trappings. There's the sort of amount of material here that used to form the basis for an entire series of The Shield , so even with a running time of two hours, it's difficult for anything to be dwelt on in detail although the high calibre acting and decent pace mean it's never less than watchable.

The main arc of the story concerns a drug deal being brokered by Jake Kelly (Armie Hammer) a DEA agent who, with an addicted sister (Lily Rose-Depp), has very personal reasons for wanting to work undercover as a trafficker in a bid to snare both the Armenian mob and a kingpin known as Mother (Guy Nadon). He doesn't know it yet but his path is going to cross that of recovering Oxycontin addict Claire (Evangeline Lilly, putting in a lot of good work in a role that could have benefited from a less pulpy character arc), a mum whose, apparently, squeaky clean son has just gone missing. Meanwhile, in the background, university professor Tyrone (Gary Oldman), who has spent much of his career rubber-stamping tests for Big Pharma, has just discovered that the latest "non-addictive" one to reach his lab has a whole heap of problems.

Opening with a fast-paced sequence in the snow that a James Bond producer would be proud of, Jarecki sets off at a gallop but because some of the nitty-gritty of this story is quite dry - regarding the way that Big Pharma use their muscle to get the results they want - he has the urge to lean into the melodramatics too hard elsewhere. This is particularly true of the brief subplot involving Jake's sister which is very sub-Law and Order and could easily have been jettisoned to give the film's other stories more room to breathe. Oldman has the most interesting and, perhaps, least familiar element of the story, as he finds himself trapped in a moral maze that he has partially constructed himself - although the ultimate resolution of this feels rather pat.

The other plot elements are solidly executed but very familiar as Jake's drug bust looms on the horizon and Claire, having found out what has happened to her son, begins to make plans of her own. It would be good to see Jarecki wean himself off multiple stories in future as you sense that if he focused on fitting in less, the end result would pack much more of a punch.

Director: Nicholas Jarecki

Writer: Nicholas Jarecki

Starring: Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Lily-Rose Depp, Guy Nadon, Veronica Ferres

Runtime: 118 minutes

Country: Canada, Belgium

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CRISIS Review — A Seriously Remarkable Film About a Seriously Tragic Issue

Film critic leah sydney’s crisis review says its a rock solid film worthy of its recent status as the # 1 selling movie on itunes..

Crisis has a socially conscious message that hits home, about the devastating worldwide drug addiction pandemic. Armie Hammer , (yep, before all the current news hit) ably plays the super adrenalin filled Undercover DEA agent Jack Kahane, who is trying to bust a fentanyl smuggling operation.  Jack’s sister Emmie, a terrific Lily-Rose Depp , is an addict herself, bringing the reality of Kahane’s job home to his own disheveled, painful life.

Cut to the narrative of a grieving mom and a former addict herself Claire, heartbreakingly played by Evangeline Lilly , who goes on a relentless quest to find out the real reason her beloved teenage son suddenly died.

As this dramatic saga is transpiring, we then go to Dr. Tyrone Brower a respected university professor, played by the always reliable Gary Oldman , who discovers startling lab results about the non-addictive painkiller he devised.  That doesn’t make the pharmaceutical big wigs, whom Brower is indebted to because of their funding his work, happy by any means.  Brower goes through his own tortuous, ethical dilemma about what his next steps should be.

How these stories intersect adds to the brisk pacing and bare-knuckled suspense which is a testament to Jarecki’s talents.  Michelle Rodriguez , Greg Kinnear , Luke Evans , Scott “Kid Cuti” Mescudi all give notable nods.  Jarecki tackles this gargantuan issue with a superb, standout vital film that sheds light on this seemingly insurmountable issue.

1 Hour 59 Minutes

If Leah Sydney’s Crisis review inspires you to see it ASAP, it is now available on iTunes, Prime Video , AppleTV, Vudu, and Fandango Now .

Lisa Johnson Mandell

[…] Globe®nominee Courteney Cox (Friends,Cougar Town), Academy Award®nominee and Emmy® Award winner Greg Kinnear andOscar® winner Mira […]

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Review: ‘Crisis’ (2021), starring Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer and Evangeline Lilly

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Armie Hammer , Billy Bryk , Crisis , drama , Eric Bruneau , Evangeline Lilly , Gary Oldman , Greg Kinnear , Kid Cudi , Lily-Rose Depp , Luke Evans , Michelle Rodriguez , movies , Nicholas Jarecki , reviews , Scott Mescudi , Veronica Ferres

March 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Crisis” (2021)

Directed by Nicholas Jarecki

Culture Representation:  Taking place primarily in Detroit and Montreal, the dramatic film “Crisis” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash:  The lives of three different Americans— a s cientist, a Drug Enforcement Agency undercover officer and a recovering opioid addict — all collide when a new “non-addictive” opioid prescription drug called Klaralon is being rushed to market .

Culture Audience:  “Crisis” will appeal primarily to people who like to watch formulaic dramas about the “war on drugs” that have some ridiculous plot developments.

It seems as if the dramatic thriller “Crisis” (written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki) was made to be a “cautionary tale” about how big pharmaceutical companies are just greedy, corporate drug dealers in the so-called “war on drugs.” However, the movie becomes so enamored with showing enmeshed storylines of the three main characters that it all just becomes a tangled mess that tries to tie up loose ends neatly in a very unrealistic way, in order to have a cliché movie ending. The acting performances are solid, but the movie’s writing and direction are bloated and messy.

The story goes back and forth between the perspectives of three Detroit people, who all end up being connected to each other in some way in the opioid crisis. It’s a crisis that has fueled demand for opioids, whether they’re sold as legal prescriptions or through the illegal drug trade. Much of the story revolves around a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sting to take down a cartel of Armenian gangsters in Montreal who traffic drugs to and from the U.S. and Canadian border. You can tell already that this movie is more convoluted than it needs to be.

Dr. Tyrone Brower (played by Gary Oldman) is a scientist (presumably in biochemistry, because the movie never says), who teaches at an unnamed university in the Detroit area. This university has had a long-term business relationship with a corporate pharmaceutical company called Northlight, which has hired the university to do research on drugs that Northlight wants approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Tyrone is in charge of these research studies, and he prides himself on having high ethical standards.

Tyrone’s latest research study for Northlight is for a painkiller called Klaralon, which is supposed to be the world’s first “non-addictive” painkiller. Of course, there are caveats to using Klaralon. It’s only “non-addictive” if taken in the correct doses. And there’s some cockamamie explanation later in the story that Klaralon won’t become addictive if patients stop taking Klaralon after 30 days.

It’s an example of a poorly thought-out screenplay, because it doesn’t factor in the reality that most patients who are prescribed painkillers need to take the drugs for longer than a month. And no legitimately greedy pharmaceutical company would want to market a drug with such short-term usage. The goal would be to keep people on these drugs as long as possible to make the maximum amount of money from selling these drugs. And there are plenty of plot holes and other illogical missteps in this movie, which ruin any credibility that “Crisis” might have intended to look like a gritty drama that’s supposed to be taken seriously.

The second person in this trio of main characters is Jake Kelly (played by Armie Hammer), a hardened DEA officer who’s undercover in the Canadian city of Montreal. He’s invested a lot of time in a DEA sting to bust an Armenian gang that has been cornering the market with illegal OxyContin sales and is trying to do the same for Fentanyl. The leader of this drug cartel is named (try not to laugh) Mother (played by Guy Nadon), and his right-hand goon is named Guy Broussard (played by Éric Bruneau). “Crisis” writer/director Jarecki portrays Stanley “Stan” Foster, who is Jake’s closest and most-trusted DEA colleague in the sting.

Jake has a personal reason for wanting to bust this drug-dealing cartel: His younger sister Emmie (played by Lily-Rose Depp) is a needle-using opioid addict. During the course of the story, Emmie starts off in rehab but then ends up leaving rehab early to go back to her junkie lifestyle. You can easily predict the scene in the movie where Emmie goes missing, Jake finds her strung-out in a drug house, and he forces her to leave while she has a temper tantrum.

And speaking of drug addicts, the third person whose perspective is shown in “Crisis” is that of single mother Claire Reimann (played by Evangeline Lilly), a recovering opioid addict who’s still struggling with staying clean and sober. Claire is shown in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, where she confesses to the attendees about her urge to use opioids and how it affects how she raises her 16-year-old son David (played by Billy Bryk).

Claire says, “I can’t even sit through a hockey game without even thinking about it. I would like to be a better person for him. And I’m working on that.” David’s father is not seen or mentioned in the movie, so it’s implied that he’s an absentee father who has no contact with Claire and David.

The university that Tyrone works for relies heavily on funding from Northlight to keep the school financially afloat. Therefore, Tyrone is under pressure to deliver lab results that will be pleasing to Northlight. However, there’s a problem with the trial studies for Klaralon. The mice that were tested in the experiments died after 10 days of being administered the drug. The trial period was extended to 30 days, and led to the same results. There’s also evidence that Klaralon is more addictive than Fentanyl.

Tyrone finds out this bad news at the worst time, because Northlight is soon going to present the university’s research on Klaralon to the FDA for approval to sell the drug. In good conscience, Tyrone refuses to lie and pretend that Klaralon is safe to sell to the general public. He meets with Northlight executives Dr. Bill Simons (played by Luke Evans) and Dr. Meg Holmes (played by Veronica Ferres), who are portrayed as soulless and money-hungry. Tyrone tells them that the drug is dangerous and not ready for FDA approval, and asks them for more time to do more lab tests.

Not surprisingly, the Northlight executives refuse and even come up with a ludicrous idea to sell Klaralon anyway. Despite all the signs that it’s a deadly drug, the Northlight executives justify this rush to market for Klaralon, by saying that the company won’t be responsible for any deaths if they include a warning that the drug cannot be taken for more than 30 days. Tyrone thinks it’s a terrible idea and isn’t afraid to say so.

After this meeting, Bill tries to entice Tyrone to sign a “modified” lab report with a “corporate donation” of $780,000. Of course, it’s really a bribe to sign a falsified report. Tyrone knows he’s being offered a bribe, but he doesn’t want to alienate Northlight, so he asks for a little more time to look over the agreement.

When Tyrone tells his boss Dean Talbot (played by Greg Kinnear) about this ethical problem, Tyrone is surprised and disappointed when the dean sides with Northlight. Dean Talbot essentially tells Tyrone that if he doesn’t sign off on the report and take the money, Northwell will cancel its contract with the university, and it will ruin the university financially.

Dean Talbot also says that just because some mice died in the lab experiments for Klaralon, that doesn’t mean that people will die from taking Klaralon too. Anyone with basic knowledge of science might be yelling at their screen at this dumb part of the movie. And the dean reminds Tyrone that the university isn’t responsible if people become addicted or die from the drugs that the university researches.

Dean Talbot also strongly hints that Tyrone will be fired if he doesn’t do what he’s told. Tyrone can’t afford to lose this job because his much-younger wife Susan (played by Mia Kirshner) is pregnant with their first child together. He’s also at an age (in his 60s) where it would be difficult to find work somewhere else. And Tyrone loves his job and doesn’t want to leave.

“Crisis” tries to do too much during its nearly two-hour running time. The story goes off the rails when tragedy strikes Claire and she turns into a vigilante. With the help of a private investigator, Claire finds out some information to try to solve a mystery. And then, she starts acting as if she’s a one-woman DEA crime-busting team. She goes back and forth between the U.S. and Canadian border. And a lot of nonsense ensues. It’s just all so ridiculously portrayed in the movie.

There are inevitable shootouts that are also badly handled in the movie. And for a powerful drug cartel led by a guy named Mother, they have a lot less people handling their business than they would in in real life. But that’s because this is a low-budget independent film, so apparently the filmmakers probably didn’t want to hire any more actors because they spent a great deal of their budget hiring an Oscar winner such as Oldman.

Oldman’s Tyrone character is supposed to be the “moral center” of the story. He’s the type of professor who tells his students: “Without us crazies, where would the world be?” As far as his big ethical dilemma about Klaralon, he might as well wear a sign that says, “Whistlebower.” Hammer and Lilly are serviceable in their roles, which don’t make much of an impression in this fairly generic movie.

Michelle Rodriguez has a small role as Jake’s DEA supervisor Mia Garrett, who doesn’t do much but scowl when she hears some of the updates that Jake gives her. Scott Mescudi, also known in real life as rapper Kid Cudi, has a much smaller role as Ben Walker, an investigator for the FDA. These two characters don’t have memorable personalities. Even the chief villain Mother is a banal stereotype of the type of elder “mob boss” that’s been seen in dozens of other crime-related dramas.

“Crisis” tries to be somewhat preachy about the far-reaching effects of the opioid crisis and the “war on drugs.” Claire is supposed to represent the “everyday person” who’s affected by this crisis. But by having her do some outlandish and very unrealistic things in this story, it actually makes her character and this movie less relatable to everyday viewers. Claire also crosses paths with Jake in some of the movie’s most preposterous scenes.

“Crisis” would have been a better movie if it focused only on Tyrone’s storyline and was a drama inspired by 1999’s “The Insider,” the Al Pacino/Russell Crowe movie about a whistleblower in the tobacco industry. “Crisis” could have been an intriguing story, because it’s rare for a dramatic movie to give an in-depth look at any corruption that goes on behind-the-scenes when drugs are being tested for FDA approval. Instead, “Crisis” overstuffs the plot with a run-of-the-mill “let’s take down a drug cartel” storyline that so many other movies have done before and done much better.

Quiver Distribution released “Crisis” in select U.S. cinemas on February 26, 2021, and on digital and VOD on March 5, 2021.

Suggestions

Review: crisis sacrifices character for the sake of delivering an op-ed.

Time and again, Crisis shortchanges the human elements of its plot lines.

Nicholas Jarecki’s Crisis is a procedural thriller that rails against the corruption and failures that have enabled America’s opioid epidemic. The film’s structure is its reason for being, the chief concern of Jarecki’s imagination, as the writer-director fashions three plot lines that show how opioid addiction is fostered on differing rungs of society: from the streets, where dealers transact with shady pharmacists, to the universities, where pharmaceutical corporations endow professors with exorbitant grants to “green stamp” their research, to the Canadian-American border, where law enforcement agencies fight an ongoing war with traffickers. In its prioritizing of systemic processes over its protagonists, Crisis almost intentionally invites comparison to any number of Steven Soderbergh films.

The effect of professional processes on human relationships is Soderbergh’s chief obsession as an artist, informing everything from his blockbuster work to his lo-fi experiments. He’s a master of informing potentially dry talking points and procedures with singular human anguish, as in the wrenching close-ups of Benicio del Toro in Traffic and the unnervingly clinical specificity and Cronenbergian dread of the carnage driving Contagion . By contrast, Jarecki’s filmmaking has, more times than not, an enervating back-and-forth quality that suggests three TV pilots that have been haphazardly woven together to prove obvious points. Perhaps unsure that his opioid-centered subject matter is enough to sustain a film, Jarecki resorts to crime-thriller clichés, from the vengeful mother to the cop who’s too honest for this compromised world, larding Crisis with 30 minutes’ worth of trite endings.

In Arbitrage , Jarecki skillfully merged melodrama and agitprop, utilizing a seductive movie-star performance by Richard Gere as a hedge-fund magnate to elicit our complicity with an attractive architect of social disfunction. Such an audience-indicting trick, pulled to galvanizing extreme by Martin Scorsese in The Wolf of Wall Street , acknowledges that social avarice is a magnification of our own, while delivering the pleasure of allowing viewers to vicariously gorge on bad behavior without consequence.

Crisis suggests that Jarecki has forgotten this trick, as it’s populated by rigid pawns who test or stimulate the audience in no way and who aren’t to be distracted from their missions, aside from a few obligatory asides that suggest a screenwriter checking off boxes. Dealing with generic Canadian and Armenian gangsters for Fentanyl, undercover D.E.A. Agent Jake Kelly’s (Armie Hammer) resolve is never frayed nor examined, while recovering addict Claire (Evangeline Lilly) barely blinks in the face of investigating her son’s fatal drug overdose, which could have been homicide. One would think that a son’s death via a mother’s own drug of choice would lead to survivor’s guilt, to a potential relapse, to some insight or event that’s invested with existential weight, but such possibilities are hinted at only to be brushed off. Instead, Jake and Claire are both rendered unremarkable action-movie heroes.

Crisis ’s most ambitious and potentially troubling story is also its most laughable. Doctor Tyrone Brower (Gary Oldman), a veteran scientist and educator who’s been running experiments on Big Pharma’s dime for years, is shocked that a donor might want something in return, namely greenlighting a fictional, supposedly non-addictive drug that’s potentially more fatal than Oxycontin. Tyrone’s naïveté, hysterically played by Oldman, is ridiculous given the character’s professional experience, and here Jarecki squanders the film’s best idea.

When Tyrone threatens to turn whistleblower, the university and pharmaceutical corporation dig up an old sexual harassment claim to discredit him, though the emotional ramifications of this threat—and of Tyrone’s potential hypocrisy as a supposed man of truth—are never plumbed. In fact, the filmmaker is so astonishingly incurious about the inner lives of his various characters that he even skims over the effect that Tyrone’s grandstanding might have on his marriage. Time and again, Crisis shortchanges the human elements of its stories—in other words the drama—for drug stats that can be Googled in a matter of seconds.

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Chuck Bowen's writing has appeared in The Guardian , The Atlantic , The AV Club , Style Weekly , and other publications.

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Common Sense Media Review

Overwrought drug drama is dark, tense, and violent.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Crisis is a drama/thriller focused on the opioid epidemic. It highlights three strands of this public health emergency: the supply chain of illegally distributed prescription painkillers, Big Pharma's push to bring new opioids to the market, and the toll that drug dependency takes on…

Why Age 15+?

Fairly high body count, between young drug mules killed by drug lord and a big s

Frequent strong language includes "f--k," "f--king," "s--t," "damn," and more.

Adults smoke cigarettes, drink, take drugs. Scenes inside a drug den. Close-up o

Volvo, Apple.

People dance closely at a club in a quick scene.

Any Positive Content?

Characters show courage: Tyrone sticks to his ethical duty to report abnormal fi

Main positive message is to stand up for the truth and help others, even when un

Violence & Scariness

Fairly high body count, between young drug mules killed by drug lord and a big shoot-out between federal agents, local authorities, and drug dealers. It's bloody and leaves one character shot/injured and another dead; also a bunch of dead extras. Another shoot-out results in two deaths. Dead mice in a lab. Disturbing scene of grieving mother looking at her dead son in the morgue.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults smoke cigarettes, drink, take drugs. Scenes inside a drug den. Close-up of a woman shooting up.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Sex, romance & nudity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Role Models

Characters show courage: Tyrone sticks to his ethical duty to report abnormal findings about the drug, even though he knows there will be repercussions. Jake is willing to sacrifice his safety to catch and arrest drug suppliers. Claire wants to make sure her son's killers don't hurt anyone else. Most characters are White, with exception of a few supporting characters who aren't in the movie for long.

Positive Messages

Main positive message is to stand up for the truth and help others, even when uncomfortable. Also promotes having the courage to be a whistleblower and the perseverance to endure the difficulties involved with telling the truth despite pressure to lie. But vigilantism and extrajudicial killing go unpunished and without consequences.

Parents need to know that Crisis is a drama/thriller focused on the opioid epidemic. It highlights three strands of this public health emergency: the supply chain of illegally distributed prescription painkillers, Big Pharma's push to bring new opioids to the market, and the toll that drug dependency takes on families. There's a lot of death in the movie, usually via gunshots but also from drug overdoses. Shoot-outs can get bloody, and one scene shows a close-up of a woman using heroin intravenously, while another depicts a mother looking at her dead son's body at a morgue. Strong language (mostly "f--k," "f--king," "s--t") is used frequently. Parents and older teens will be able to connect the movie's fictional drug with what has happened in real life with Purdue Pharma and OxyContin, leading to the current U.S. opioid crisis. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

Writer-director Nicholas Jarecki 's drama CRISIS offers a three-pronged look at the United States' destructive -- and lucrative -- opioid epidemic. It examines the supply chain (in this case, from Canada) of illegally distributed pills, the pharmaceutical industry's quest for a non-addictive painkiller, and the toll on those who are drug-dependent in real life. The first storyline follows Jake Kahane ( Armie Hammer ), an undercover DEA agent who's tracking a big-time Quebecois pill distributor called "Mother" (Guy Nadon). It turns out that Jake's younger sister, Emmie ( Lily-Rose Depp ), is dependent on heroin, so his mission is personal. The second thread centers on Dr. Tyrone Brower ( Gary Oldman ), a university professor whose lab finds disturbing results about its client pharmaceutical company's new drug, a painkiller that's supposed to provide pain relief without addiction -- but, of course, it is addictive. The final protagonist is Claire Reimann ( Evangeline Lilly ), an architect and single mother who was formerly dependent on OxyContin; her teen son dies of an apparent overdose. Despite police findings regarding her son's death, Claire believes that his cause of death was actually murder, and she sets out to find the truth. All three central characters are on difficult, at times violent, journeys that expose how greed and profit are at the heart of the titular crisis.

Is It Any Good?

Jarecki explores lots of ideas that don't quite come together in a cohesive way about a topic that's deserving of a better movie. Audiences are better off reading Dopesick and Dreamland instead. The movie seems directly influenced by Steven Soderbergh's Traffic , with interlocking stories that, here, chronicle various aspects of the legal and illegal pharmaceutical drug business and how that translates to violence and street addiction. The cast is talented, although negative publicity about Hammer's personal life might be difficult for some audiences to ignore. And Oldman is a superb actor, but here he's in such full-on yelling mode that he could rival Al Pacino. Lilly, meanwhile, has to evolve from a weeping, grieving mother into a Liam Neeson-style avenging parent.

Individually, each thread could have made a thoughtful -- and thought-provoking -- movie. Mixed all together, however, the ultimate message is overly preachy and unsatisfying. Considering that the opioid epidemic is one of the United States' most devastating and important health crises, it's understandable why Jarecki (who unnecessarily cast himself in a fairly prominent supporting role as Jake's partner) chose it. But there's a lack of nuance in Crisis , and it doesn't meet the potential of its acting ensemble or its themes.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Crisis . Why is or isn't the violence necessary to the story that the filmmaker is trying to tell? Does realistic violence impact viewers differently than stylized or fantasy violence?

Why is it important to discuss the opioid epidemic? Do you think the movie explains the seriousness of the issue of opioid use in the United States?

Which of the movie's three storylines speaks to you the most? What do you like about the multiple perspectives on the same topic?

Do you consider anyone in the story a role model ? What character strengths do they display?

Movie Details

• In theaters : February 26, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : April 20, 2021
• Cast : Gary Oldman , Armie Hammer , Evangeline Lilly
• Director : Nicholas Jarecki
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Quiver Distribution
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 118 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : drug content, violence, and language throughout
• Last updated : June 20, 2023

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Requiem for a Dream

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Crisis review: a formulaic drug movie with little emotional stakes.

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Crisis centers the opioid epidemic by turning its attention to multiple characters and three distinct narratives that work as standalone stories, but are intertwined through a focus on fentanyl, oxycodone, and heroin. Suffice it to say there is a lot going on in the film, which is written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, and yet none of it comes together cohesively to work. While Crisis has shining moments that are effective, the film doesn't engage with the characters or invest in any emotional stakes to be worthwhile. 

The film follows three characters, all of whom are connected to opioids directly or otherwise. Claire (Evangeline Lilly) is a former addict whose son dies from an overdose, though she suspects foul play; Dr. Tyrone Brower (Gary Oldman) is a college professor whose research team is paid to test out a new drug by a big pharmaceutical company, which leads him to a crisis of conscience when he realizes the drug's devastating effects; finally, there's Jake (Armie Hammer), an undercover DEA agent investigating drug lords at the Canadian border and who is intent on bringing them down. Jake also has a sister who is addicted to oxycodone, so it's somewhat of a personal vendetta for him as well. 

Related:  Trainspotting & 9 Other Classic Movies About Drug Use

Crisis tries its hardest to be like Traffic , but fails in creating a satisfyingly thorough world with enough high stakes or tension. Storywise, the film is incredibly flat and static. There are several moving pieces, but viewers won’t find themselves enthralled by any of them. Rather than focusing on the thriller aspects of the film, Crisis should have been an examination of the people at the forefront of the opioid epidemic. Instead, Jarecki splits the film's focus in an attempt to capture the abhorrent actions of those with power without formally addressing the systems in place or the people who are disproportionately affected by it.

Who wants to follow the DEA or a pharmaceutical company’s corruption when the decision-making feels so distant from the people who buy and sell it? The lack of such emotional investment will leave the audience detached from the storyline, which is convoluted and doesn't come together cohesively or effectively in the film's final act. Oldman and Hammer's subplots take up a lot of space, with the latter's story involving a drug-addicted sister who is honestly mistreated by him. Jake wants to help her, but he's too caught up with his job to fully care. Oldman's Tyrone has the second-most intriguing plot because of its proximity to a big pharma company, the FDA, and the unethical actions of introducing a drug that is harmful to people.

However, the emotional core of the film lies with Lilly's Claire. She is desperate for answers regarding her son and takes matters into her own hands when she realizes the cops don't care to figure out what really happened. Claire gets in way over her head, of course, but she is also the most sympathetic character and someone whose arc viewers can be fully engaged with. It's here where the story has the highest stakes and leans into captivating territory, even though the plot becomes more concerned with her surface-level revenge. It's detrimental to the film's flow whenever the focus is shifted away from Lilly and Oldman, both of whom provide the most grounded and moving performances of the ensemble.

To be sure, Crisis is a call to action, highlighting the opioid epidemic while showcasing the many moving parts. However, the film wants to include everything, rendering its message muddled. The story ultimately comes off like a well-researched article with statistics that can easily be found doing a Google search. There is no pathos to be found, no fluidity to tie everything together despite Jarecki's well-meaning attempts. Crisis ends up being a superficial story, unwilling to dive deeper into what it's trying to convey and it keeps all of its characters and their storylines at arm's length. There could have been so much more to the story, so many intricacies worth exploring, but there isn't enough tension, drama, or stakes to make for an enthralling watch. 

Next:  The Most Anticipated Movies of 2021

Crisis  is now playing in theaters and will be available on demand and digital March 5, 2021. The film is 118 minutes long and is rated R for drug content, violence, and language throughout.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments!

Released in 2021, Crisis is a drama thriller set during the opioid epidemic centering on Dr. Tyrone Brower, a scientist at Everett University, Jake Kelly, an undercover DEA Agent, and Claire Reimann, a grieving mother and recovering drug addict. The movie was directed by Nicholas Jarecki and starred Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, and Evangeline Lilly.

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‘crisis’: film review.

Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer and Evangeline Lilly star in Nicholas Jarecki's multi-narrative look at the opioid problem.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

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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.

Release date: Feb 26, 2021

Hammer plays undercover DEA man Jake Kelly, who’s spent a year establishing his credibility as a pill merchant to a crew of “Armenian power gangsters” who traffic in Oxy. The plan is to connect these guys with a Montreal fentanyl kingpin and bring down two big drug rings at once. When not pretending to be a tough guy or laying out plans at the office, Jake’s trying to keep his opioid-addicted kid sister in rehab.

Another addict, Claire Reimann ( Evangeline Lilly ) is much farther along in recovery. She seems at peace during her shares in twelve-step meetings, but then her world is rocked: Her son goes missing and is soon found dead. Police say it’s an overdose, but Claire’s certain her son was no drug user. With forty ODs a week, Detroit detectives can’t dig into what looks like a simple case. So instead of relapsing into drug-fueled grief, Claire opens her own DIY investigation. Soon she’s tracking down petty dealers, following leads up the chain of command and setting out on a Dirty Harry drive to Montreal.

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Armie hammer dropped by wme (exclusive).

The third plot concerns supply. The CEO of a pharma company has shepherded development of a “holy grail”: the first non-addictive painkiller. The FDA believes in the drug, and so do the brothers whose family built the company. But a professor whose lab was hired to test it on mice ( Gary Oldman ‘s interestingly accented Tyrone Brower) knows better. If it’s not used exactly as prescribed, the drug may well be far more addictive and deadly than any previously known.

Without being able to rely on generic policier and vigilante tropes, this third section struggles the most with Jarecki’s sometimes clunky screenwriting. Dr. Brower faces predictable hurdles when he tries to make drug execs heed the warning in his findings: First they gently try to bribe him, then they get his university’s leaders worried about the millions they pour into research, then they mount a campaign to discredit him. Oldman is convincing as a shaky man who has compromised in the past but may be about to stand firm, but the film’s presentation of his plight feels generic and prefabricated.

The film’s other two parts, which wind up entangled, move more easily — provided viewers accept the quick success architect Claire has in hunting professional drug dealers, and don’t object to the many points at which a sane person would simply call the police and say, “I’ve done your legwork for you, here are the people to arrest.” Lilly performs capably in an underdeveloped role, but the character’s own history with drugs is extraneous, serving only to give us one brief will she/won’t she scene with a bottle of pills.

Ultimately, none of the storylines offers a surprise or tells us anything we don’t already know, this many years into America’s opioid ordeal. And arriving at a moment when “Crisis” could refer to so many other calamities, its failure to illuminate anything makes it feel like a distraction.

Production companies: LOD Productions, Bideford Productions Distributor: Quiver Distribution Cast: Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Veronica Ferres Director-Screenwriter: Nicholas Jarecki Producers: Cassian Elwes, Nicholas Jarecki Director of photography: Nicolas Bolduc Production designer: Jean-Andre Carriere Costume designer: Simonetta Mariano Editor: Duff Smith Composer: Raphael Reed Casting director: Jessica Kelly

R, 118 minutes

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Crisis Reviews

A relatively second-rate script and lackluster direction on Jarecki’s part leaves the film a sadly less than riveting experience.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2023

While Crisis falls short of its potential, it's not a complete failure - it simply needed more attention to the story development.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 27, 2023

Ultimately, it's hard to get emotionally invested with these thinly written characters.

Full Review | Dec 17, 2021

A flawed, yet compelling drama looking to educate audiences unfamiliar with the full scale and chilling horror of America's opioid addiction crisis.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 29, 2021

Jarecki ably juggles the narrative concerns in a carefully balanced manner that takes time to flesh out detailed concerns specific to each perspective while making sure all are given their due, equal weight.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 19, 2021

Three intersecting stories - in the style of the far superior Traffic - about the opioid pandemic in the United States, directed with skill and with a competent cast. Unfairly relegated by problems not really related to the quality of the film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 24, 2021

Jarecki doesn't pretend to offer solutions, but his film does reveal how lost we can all get in the mix.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Aug 27, 2021

If I walked out of Crisis with the amount of knowledge and awareness that I learnt, then it was a time well spent .. and I didn't walk out with just that.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 19, 2021

...the story remains topical and compelling enough to hold attention, aided by its strong cast and the ever-intense Gary Oldman.

Full Review | Jul 16, 2021

There's no denying its timeliness, offering a compelling look at what will certainly be remembered as one of the most underplayed tragedies of our time.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 30, 2021

Somewhat muddled in its message but accurate in its heart, "Crisis" doesn't knock down any doors, but does bring to the weekend-watch crowd some excitement inside some real-world problems

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 22, 2021

One of the narrative strands is particularly hard-hitting and compelling, pointing to the profiteering and homicidal activities of the giant pharmaceutical companies.

Full Review | Jun 18, 2021

An out-of-another-era movie, a starry, location-heavy, issues-driven feature melodrama in the age of streaming miniseries... How do you alert moviegoers to a punchy powder keg pitting Big Pharma and its talons against fumbling by the feds?

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 17, 2021

An effective drama/thriller about the opioid crisis that shows three separate situations that ultimately come together to blatantly shine a light on the problem while still entertaining.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.0 | Jun 11, 2021

Crisis could have made an appropriately sprawling streaming series, but as a two-hour film, it is still an admirable and passionate effort from the talented Jarecki.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jun 9, 2021

Crisis is the type of movie that slaps a few random facts from Wikipedia about opioid addiction over its end credits and considers itself profound.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2021

The first narrative film on the opioid crisis and will surely be the best for years to come.

Full Review | May 21, 2021

While this multi-story film doesn't quite pack the punch for taking this problem seriously in its scattershot methodology, there's at least an ample ambition in trying to broaden this picture to be far more than just one genre of drug drama.

Full Review | May 19, 2021

Thankfully with interesting character arcs, the film scrapes by being full labelled as an 'issue' film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 15, 2021

Crisis invites us to reflect on an invisible enemy that grows bigger every day and whose ravages have become normalized to the point of horror: the addictions created by opioids and the silence that companies keep [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2021