This film has a triple-treat storyline that shines multi-facetted light on the problem of drugs.

The end of this film leaves with the serious text that more people in the USA have overdosed in the last two years than died in the entire Vietnam War.  So it really is setting its heart in the drug crisis and choosing to explore this from three levels.  Some will find the three stories a bit much to follow, but I thoroughly enjoyed them and it kept me wondering how and when and if they’d intersect.

Armie Hammer plays Jake, a rugged DEA agent undercover and negotiating drug deals across the Canadian-US border.  He also has a sister in drug detox.  There’s lots of agent scheming and druglord scheming in this story.  I mean we’ve seen this all before, but the druglord is called Mother and that’s a nice touch.

Gary Oldman plays Tyrone, an affable Pharmacology Professor.  But his lab makes a discovery about a soon to be released pain killer.  This puts him in conflict with the big pharma… will he take the money, will he whistleblow?  Where is the uni in all of this?  With him, or against him?  I thought this showed a nice set of parallels to the DEA story in the levels of double-crossing and scheming and “who works for who” vibes.  It was nice to see these legal druglord relationships explored.

Evangeline Lilly (such a drug brand name!) plays doctor-shopping opioid addict Claire.  When her 16 year old son dies of an overdose, she goes seeking the answers the police are too overwhelmed to investigate.  Her conflict between her own addiction and her quest for answers and justice is interesting and compelling.

The whole story takes place, I believe between the cities of Montreal and Detroit.  And it’s a snow story!  Plenty of snow.  I’m always excited by stories set in the snow because it always looks so beautiful, cold and slippery.  In a world filled with films set on the Mexico-US border it was nice to see the line in the snow explored.  I think the only other Canada-US-snowy-times drug movie I can think of at the minute is Braven (2018).  This is not as gloriously snowy as that.  Daughter of the Wolf (2019) is also an excellent snowy story about kidnapping. 

Whilst three stories could seem like a lot, they always keep their central character the focus, so you always know who you’re riding with.  It does make it a little hard, structurally, to know how far through the film you are – I remember at one point thinking I could be a third in, or five minutes from the end and I couldn’t tell which.  There’s always a lot going on and it’s well filmed and atmospheric.  I found it quite suspenseful wondering how each storyline would end, or if it had already ended.  And when they did end, I was quite fascinated by the choices of endpoint.

There’s a little bit of Michelle Rodriguez, but not nearly as much as I would like.  It’s a sort of slow drama, but I really liked the way it explored a wide range of drug themes in the one space.  

It kind of felt ambitious, but also like it achieved it’s goal of having you see both legal and illegal drugs as part of the same problem of addiction and profit driven industry.

J* gives it 4 stars.

PS. Does the USA really dispense its drugs in pill bottles, rather than blister packs? Or is this just a film-thing?