Pain Hustlers Real Vs Reel Characters: Emily Blunt and Chris Evans’s starrer film Pain Hustler is based on a real story. Directed by Harry Potter film director David Yates, Pain Hustlers story is based on the real-life Insys Therapeutics scandal.
The film takes heavy inspiration from writer Evan Hughes’ article “The Pain Hustlers.” Evan later expanded the article and wrote a full-fledged book, “The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Start-Up.” The film is not a detailed story on the Insys scandal. The main plot of the story is fictional, and the director kept the film comical and didn’t make it very serious.
What’s The Real Story Of Pain Hustlers?
Like in the David Yates directed movie Insys Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company sells Subsys, a fentanyl drug that is only used as a pain relief medication for cancer patients. In the movie, they changed the name of the company to “Zanna Therapeutics” and the drug name to “Lonafin.” Just like in the movie, Insys sales representatives bribed doctors to promote and prescribe their drug Subsys to more people. They paid nearly $260K to doctors who wrote $6m worth of Subsys prescriptions.
Everything was good until Insys told doctors to prescribe Subsys to non-cancer patients. People with different health problems and pain. Which resulted in people having an addiction to it. Insys’ downfall started in December 2016, after former executives from Insys were taken into custody.
Pete Brenner Based on a Real-life Life Person?
No, Pain Hustlers Pete Brenner is not based on a real-life person. However, the film writer took heavy inspiration from the former sales executive of Insys company Alec Burlakoff. Alec Burlakoff was the sales executive at Insys Therapeutics.
He was one of those executives who were taken into custody. Alec Burlakoff later cooperated with the government and was sentenced to only 3 years in prison. Alec completed his sentence, and now he is out of prison. Chris Evans played the role of Pete Brenner in Pain Hustlers.
Is Emily Blunt’s Liza Drake based on a Real Life Person?
Like Chris Evans Pete Brenner, Emily Blunt’s Liza Drake is also not a real-life person. It’s also not inspired by real people. In Evan Hughes’ book, he wrote about Insys hiring a woman who used to work as a stripper. In the movie, Emily Blunt’s character Liza also works as a stripper and she later gets a job in a pharmaceutical company. You can say that Emily Blunt’s Liza Drake is totally fictional.
Is Jack Neel CEO based on a Real Life Person?
Yes, Andy Garcia played the role of Jack Neel. Jack Neel is based on the real-life founder of Insys Therapeutics John Kapoor. John Kapoor was sentenced to five years for the scandal and his company went bankrupt.
More Like This: Orakas Tribes Andaman: Are They Real? | LHF 27 Disease
Overall Pain Hustlers took inspiration from real-life stories and people. What are your take on this film? we will also cover all the characters of the film one bye one. For more news, updates and reviews, stay tuned with us.
