Pain Hustlers | 2023 | R | – 5.3.10

Why is “Pain Hustlers” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “language throughout, some sexual content, nudity and drug use.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a couple of implied sex scenes, a couple of kissing scenes, several flirting scenes, partial nudity in an exotic dance club, a reference to the attempted rape of a young teen boy, many arguments and several scuffles with no injuries shown, a fire accidentally set by children, a young girl having epileptic seizures, the arrests of company executives, several scenes show people under the influence of pain medications or suffering from the side effects of medications, and over 80 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

Based on true events, reported in a 2018 New York Times Magazine article: A struggling single mother (Emily Blunt) persuades a failing pharmaceutical company’s manager (Chris Evans) to hire her to sell a fentanyl-based nasal spray for pain to doctors. She is a big success until patients start dying and law enforcement becomes involved. Also with Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Chloe Coleman, Brian d’Arcy James and Andy Garcia. Directed by David Yates. [Running Time: 2:04]

Pain Hustlers SEX/NUDITY 5

 – A man in a parked car leans back in his seat, grimaces, moaning loudly while holding an unlit cigarette and a woman sits up from below the frame (implying oral sex). A woman leans over a seated man, between his legs (both are clothed) and kisses him.
► A man says that at age 13, an older man from his church performed oral sex on him, and that he knocked the man’s teeth down his throat. A man says he is so sexy as to be addictive.
► We see several women wearing skimpy bikinis twirling around poles in an exotic dance club. A man tells a dancer he does not want a lap dance (she did not offer one). Pharmaceutical sales people flirt with doctors, standing close, smiling, and batting their eyes. A woman kisses the back of a man’s hand.
► Several showgirls in a dressing room wear thong underwear and we see several pairs of fully nude buttocks, bare thighs and legs. A man sits in a sink with his pants pulled down and we see his bare legs. In an exotic dance club, a woman wearing a bikini walks across the screen and we see significant cleavage, abdomen, bare thighs, and partial bare buttocks. Women in a few scenes wear crop tops and tank tops with straps, revealing bare shoulders, cleavage and partial bare abdomens and a few women wear mid-thigh-length shorts. At a company party, eight women wear athletic shorts on a stage, revealing bare legs to the upper thighs and they walk around briefly. A few scenes include women wearing clingy dresses, one with a slit from the knee to the upper thigh, and a few women have low-cut necklines that reveal cleavage. An older woman wears a mini dress with the hemline at mid-thigh.

Pain Hustlers VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – A man attacks another man in an office and they scuffle and push each other for several seconds before one of them leaves angrily. A man and a woman scuffle in a parking garage without injuries, she gets loose and she calls him names and stalks away. Two women scuffle and other women pull them apart; no one is injured. An executive has a psychotic break and yells loudly for several seconds at everyone in his company, telling them to remove their shoes so as not to scuff his expensive floor.
► A young teen girl suffers an epileptic seizure and falls to the floor in her doctor’s office, convulsing with her arms drawn up tightly; the doctor tells her to take her meds regularly (we do not see them) and she suffers another seizure on a stage at school, she goes home and vomits into a toilet (we see no goo), and the next day a doctor says she needs surgery to remove a tangle of blood vessels in her brain (we see her after surgery without bandages or scars). We see a man with a bandage over his lower arm and hear that his arm is broken. We hear that a woman suffered a lot of pain from cancer and died. We hear that a man’s parents are both dead (no cause is mentioned).
► Three young teen girls light fireworks in a field and a fire spreads; firefighters arrive and the girls are suspended from school for three days.
► Police officers break down doors and enter with FBI agents to arrest drug company executives for bribery and kickbacks; several men are sentenced from 16 months to 66 months in prison and a woman cooperates with the federal government and is sentenced to 15 months. We see a color montage of police arresting drug company executives. We see a black-and-white montage of a body bag, police breaking down a door, a syringe on the ground, and a soldier lying in rubble.
► Several loud arguments occur between men and women.

Pain Hustlers LANGUAGE 10

 – About 83 F-words and its derivatives, 10 sexual references, 34 scatological terms, 13 anatomical terms, 5 mild obscenities, name-calling (stupid, quack, sucker, back-stabbing snake, snake, joke, crooks, greedy, Dr. Sketchball), exclamations (jeez, wow, oh my gosh, whoa, whoo), 9 religious profanities (GD), 32 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, oh my Lord, oh God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Holy [scatological term deleted]). | profanity glossary |

Pain Hustlers SUBSTANCE USE

 – We hear that seven million people in America take prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, we hear that three patients and a man with a broken arm taking fentanyl for pain died of overdoses, a man smiles and slurs his words before spitting out two broken teeth into his hand and we later hear he was suffering the side effects of fentanyl, a man snorts two lines of cocaine in a washroom, a man sucks on a fentanyl laced lollipop and says it does not help his pain, several doctors change their pain patients to a fentanyl nasal spray and receive bribes and kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies for doing so, and a woman says she sold THC gummies for pain relief in the past. Several men and women at a bar drink shots of liquor as well as mixed drinks and glasses of beer, a woman sits alone at a bar and drinks a shot of Cuervo, two men hold large glasses of whiskey in an office, a woman drinks a glass of wine at home, a woman holds a glass of wine, several men and women at a party pour wine from boxes of wine and one person is shown drinking, and men and women hold glasses of wine but are not shown drinking. Four men and a woman light and smoke cigarettes in different scenes.

Pain Hustlers DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Chronic pain, cancer, epilepsy, single mothers and poverty, low paying jobs, Medicaid insurance coverage, death, loss, grief, anger, addiction to prescribed drugs, bribery and kickbacks, fentanyl, opioid epidemic, pharmaceutical companies, crime, responsibility, consequences, starting over, success, happiness.

Pain Hustlers MESSAGE

 – The opioid crisis in America has cost many lives at the hands of greedy corporate executives and stockholders.