American Pain (2023) Movie Review – An excruciating look at those who cashed in on the opioid crisis

An excruciating look at those who cashed in on the opioid crisis

There’s a quote in American Pain  that really underlines the main theme and ideas in HBO Max’s latest documentary film. “Committing fraud is just understanding the system and taking advantage of its weakness to commit a crime.”

There have been a number of different documentaries and shows over the years about big Pharma, ranging from the excellent dramatized Dopesick to hard-hitting docs like Crime of the Century. This time though, the focus shines a spotlight on Florida and, specifically, to twin bodybuilders who became massive kingpins, boasting one of the largest oxycodone trafficking networks in US history.

Spread across 1 hour and 45 minutes, the documentary charts their rise and subsequent fall in the 2000’s, all whilst documenting everything that went down in Florida during that time. With Chris and Jeff fixated on making as much money as possible, the pair exploit a gap in the system, given Florida didn’t gave a database at that time, got themselves a medical licence and set up shop.

As South Florida Pain Clinic gains notoriety, tourism spikes with one commenter pointing out it was like “Disneyland for pain meds” as people travel thousands of miles just for a fix. Inevitably, police get involved and what follows is a slow (very slow in fact) noose tightening around the brothers’ neck as the investigation comes to a head.

Interestingly though, there’s a good deal of blame leveled at the manufacturers for these pain pills too. As we hear numerous times over the course of this film, manufacturers of these pills must have known what was happening, given the billions of pain meds shipped down to the coast. In fact, a lot of the big players here simply level the blame at Big Pharma, with one of the twins, Chris, using the “yeah but they’re way worse” excuse to shrug off responsibility at the end for his part to play in all this.

Even taking that into consideration though, one can’t excuse some of the more chilling inclusions, with the brothers at one point laughing and joking about a train crash victim.

What’s particularly disheartening though is knowing that a lot of people involved in this are walking around today. With thousands, if not tens of thousands, dying as a result of pain medication and Big Pharma greed, American Pain is another reminder of how unchecked one of the biggest killers in US history was.

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