PRESCRIPTION THUGS<\/b>
\nSamuel Goldwyn Films
\nReviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya.\u00a0 D-based on Rotten Tomatoes
\nGrade: B-
\nDirector:\u00a0 Chris Bell
\nWritten by:\u00a0 Josh Alexander
\nCast: Chris Bell, Mike \u201cMad Dog\u201d Bell, Mark Bell, Rosemary Bell, Mike Bell, Chris Leben, Ryan Sakoda, Matt \u201cHorshu\u201d Wiese, Richard Taite, Ted Lieu, Gwen Olsen, David Healy
\nScreened at: Critics\u2019 link, NYC, 1\/20\/16
\nOpens:\u00a0 January 22, 2016<\/p>\n
Chris Bell, whose previous documentary \u201cBigger Stronger Faster\u201d dealt with steroid abuse, takes on Big Phama, a conglomerate of companies that make prescription drugs and whose executives could well be in that frequently maligned richest one percent of the U.S.\u00a0 Mr. Bell is no Michael Moore, though in his possible addiction to food (he is overweight as is his dad), resembles my favorite documentarian only in his, shall we say, informal appearance.\u00a0 Baseball hat backwards and comfortable throughout the presentation in a pair of shorts, he takes his camera to his own family, one which has its share of tragedy.\u00a0 Unlike Michael Moore, \u201cPrescription Thugs\u201d makes little use of graphics and simply lacks the loopy humor of movies like Moore\u2019s \u201cSicko\u201d and Morgan Spurlock\u2019s 2004 film \u201cSuper Size Me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bell family had been thriving on sports, though wholesome would not ordinarily be ascribed to such fakery as we find in professional wrestling.\u00a0 Despite some of the ersatz blows that exhibitionists in the wrestling ring use, the hard-hitting sport did result in pain to the Bell trio leading them to turn to prescription drugs.\u00a0 Why so?\u00a0 Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that only the U.S and New Zealand allow commercials for prescription drugs\u2014though many of the TV spots would make you think twice before taking a pill that could lead to impotence, obesity, pruritis and death.\u00a0 As Bell begins his muckraking with the fact that America has only five percent of the world\u2019s population yet consume seventy-five percent of Rx\u2019s, he segues into commentary by the likes of fellow wrestler Ryan Sakoda and especially to the confession by Matt \u201cHorshu\u201d Wiese that he had incredibly been using ninety pills daily.<\/p>\n
While labels tell us not to share our prescriptions, in one of who-knows-how-many cases, a Minnesota woman found herself stealing some of her daughter\u2019s Adderall capsules, a drug that has become one of the most popular fixes for\u00a0 ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, whose side effects appear on the Internet including bladder pain, painful urination, and some eight other baddies that make you wonder whether doctors, many of whom make too liberal use of their pads, tell their patients about the negatives.<\/p>\n
Speaking of baddies, Bell shares no political camaraderie with former President Ronald Reagan, whose deregulation of just about everything in the corporate world made his wife\u2019s famous quote \u201cJust say no\u201d almost impossible to win adherents.\u00a0 The American people, and not just those who resist buying the Brooklyn Bridge, have been TV-brainwashed to think that pills or every sort could cure pain and make their love lives ecstatic and give them all sorts of pleasant feelings, and why not?\u00a0 Haven\u2019t the commercials told us that there is no such thing as sadness in America?\u00a0 Yet we come away from the TV with the feeling that we\u2019re sometimes sad, and that when we feel sad we should pop pills and smile like all other Americans.<\/p>\n
Bell is no pal of doctors and the FDA.\u00a0 The Federal Drug Administration, which I had previously considered a huge stumbling block for approval of new drugs, clears any product that has achieved two successful tests.\u00a0 Never mind that oxycodone is meant for overwhelming pain: people had been crushing the tablet and snorting the drug for a quick high to such an extent that when the government banned oxy pills that could be crushed, income from the drug plummeted eighty percent.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s sometimes difficult to avoid being distracted from Bell\u2019s speech as it is littered with \u201cyou know\u201d as though he\u2019s trying to compete with some of Caroline Kennedy\u2019s speeches.\u00a0 Is there a drug that could restrain this awful speech throat-clearer?<\/p>\n
While Chris Bell\u2019s heart is in the right place, the doc could have been better, I think, if it did not spend so much time on his own family but instead dealt with a less anecdotal coverage of the problem of legalized addiction, had a lot more graphics, and injected humor in the right places.<\/b><\/p>\n
Unrated.\u00a0 86 minutes.\u00a0 \u00a9 Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Onlin<\/p>\n
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