CRISIS : Tuesday 30th March 2021.

'CRISIS', which I saw at my local multiplex this week, is an MA15+ Rated crime thriller Directed, Produced, Written and also starring Nicholas Jarecki in only his second feature film making outing following 2012's 'Arbitrage' with Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Tim Roth. The film was released in the US in late February, and in Canada and Australia two weeks ago now, having gained mixed or average Reviews along the way. Featuring an ensemble cast that takes in the likes of Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez, Lily-Rose Depp, Indira Varma, Kid Cudi and Martin Donovan the film has so far grossed US$986K at the Box Office. 

And so the film opens up with an action sequence that sees a white clad camouflaged drug runner pulling a makeshift sleigh thorough a forest and in the snow only to be ambushed and subsequently arrested by Police in a helicopter and on snowmobiles while trying to smuggle Fentanyl across an unpatrolled stretch of the Canadian border, about forty miles south of Montreal.

Meanwhile, back in Detroit, following the arrest, Jake Kelly (Armie Hammer) goes into damage control with a pair of Armenian gangster associates Minas (Michael Aronov) and Armen (Adam Tsekhman). He then risks blowing his cover to visit his drug addled younger sister Emmie (Lily-Rose Depp) seemingly recovering in a rehab facility, but largely non compos mentis. Kelly, who we subsequently learn is in fact an undercover DEA Officer, holds a briefing with his colleagues to bring them up to speed with his operations, which he has been working on for over a year now to infiltrate the Armenian's and gain their confidence that he is on the level. 

While this is going on the second story strand launches with architect Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly) attending a drug users survivors meeting recounting her former acute addiction to OxyContin, without realising just how close to home the trade has become in illicit drugs when her sixteen year old mad sports keen fan son David (Billy Bryk) goes missing, and winds up very dead seemingly overdosed on OxyContin. 

The third strand unravels in the hallowed halls of a university campus where charismatic professor of biology Dr. Tyrone Brower (Gary Oldman) teaches a captivated lecture theatre, but may be about to compromise his integrity in his lab by conducting drug trials directly sponsored for the last seven years by a major pharmaceutical company. When Brower’s lab assistants come to the realisation that a new wonder drug, Klaralon, is three times more addictive than other painkillers on mice (and fatal when taken to excess, although claimed to be non-addictive), he’s torn by what to do with this revelation. 

Enter Big Pharma Executive Dr. Bill Simmons (Luke Evans) to offer Brower’s department a US$780K grant in exchange for enhanced nondisclosure terms, updating and making even more watertight those signed seven years previously. But then the Principal of the University, Dean Talbot (Greg Kinnear) basically intervenes and tells him not to worry about the results on the mice, to sign the non-disclosure statement and take the much needed funding to enable Brower to continue with his research. This turn of events puts Brower in an even greater quandary.

In the meantime, Jake Kelly and his DEA partner Stanley Foster (Nicholas Jerecki) are under pressure to bring their undercover operation to a close within the next two weeks, otherwise it will be shut down. Kelly has a meeting with Supervisor Garrett (Michelle Rodriguez) at which this news is broken. Kelly arranges a meeting with the drug smuggling kingpin, known only as Mother (Guy Nadon) in an attempt to fast track a US$3M cash trade for two truck loads of Fentanyl, hidden inside vitamin bottles. Mother is initially reluctant, but ultimately agrees to the manufacture of the drug in the volume required and the sale of it to Kelly. 

At the same time, Claire Reimann is recovering from the tragic loss of her son, smells a rat as a result of the autopsy revealing a substantial bruise to his head, and the manner in which he died. She starts to do some of her own digging, which leads her to Derrick Millebran (Duke Nicholson), a former at arms length associate of her son, where it is revealed that David didn't even know he was acting as a mule for a stash of Fentanyl that he was carrying in his back pack while cycling home. He was poisoned by Mother by forcing on overdose of the drug down his throat.

Brower, after wrestling with his conscience decides to expose the pharmaceutical company to the FDA as a Whistleblower. Talbot and he have a falling out, with the Principal saying that such tests on mice are deemed inconclusive anyway, and as the pharmaceutical were in the final stages of human trials anyway it really didn't matter. Needless to say, the University and the big pharma company begin dredging up dirt on Brower to discredit him which ultimately costs him his job and his twenty plus year friendship with Dean Talbot. Brower's wife Madira (Indira Varma) is however, very supportive of her husband and remains stoic throughout. After his dismissal from the university, he is attending the FDA hearing with his contact their Ben Walker (Kid Cudi) where basically his findings are dismissed, he is not permitted to speak to give his viewpoint, Klaralon is passed and authorised for public use, Walker is 'reassigned', and the big pharma company walks away with all the spoils, overseen by Dr. Bill Simmons, Meg Holmes the CEO of the company (Veronica Ferres) and the two owner brothers of the company Lawrence (Martin Donovan) and Harold Morgan (Marcel Jeannin).   

Reimann has in between time hired a Private Investigator to do some digging on Mother (bacause as an ordinary citizen she wouldn't have access to the type of intelligence that a PI would of course), and at the same time provide her with a gun, as it has become blatantly obvious that she intends to kill the man responsible for her sons death. Kelly has set up the deal with Mother for him to manufacture the pills, bottle and label them in vitamin canisters, in exchange for US$3M - US$1M of which he has been authorised by Garrett to use, with the other US$2M coming from his Armenian contacts Minas and Armen. A time is set for the exchange in an abandoned warehouse with Stanley Foster in a surveillance truck on standby with the cavalry waiting in the wings poised ready to pounce given the signal. But of course these things never go according to plan and a firefight breaks out with Kelly getting shot cleanly in the chest by Mother who then makes his escape. In the firefight, Kelly recovers having been wearing a bullet proof vest of course, but Foster is shot in the neck, bleeds out and dies in Kelly's arms. Kelly gives chase to Mother but he is gone having been whisked away in a car. 

The PI calls Reimann on her mobile phone and informs her that Mother owns a seaplane that is kept down at the docks, and in all likelihood he'll be headed for there to make his getaway. Kelly meanwhile, sits in front of his Chief with Garrett to be told that the case is now being closed down. Needless to say he in none to pleased at this prospect given that the killer of his partner is still free. He runs off to the bar which Mother owned, beats up on the barman demanding to know where Mother is. Under duress and at gunpoint the barman says that Mothers owns a seaplane down at the docks and that is probably where he's headed. As Kelly pulls up and parks amongst the stacked containers and out of sight, he notices Reimann also parked there, patiently awaiting the arrival of Mother. A car pulls up and out steps Mother and another. Reimann gets out of her vehicle and points her weapon at Mother and calls out to him. He turns and she hesitates, giving him time to pull his weapon. She fires three or fours rounds at Mother killing him, but not before being shot herself in her arm before he went down. Kelly takes care of the other man as he runs to Reimann to lend her assistance. 

With both Mother and his associate dead on the ground, Kelly exchanges Mother's pistol for Reimann's, picks up all the dead rounds from Reimann's gun and places them on the ground next to Mother, and then they both drive off in her car. In a hotel room Kelly is bandaging up Reimann's arm. She asks Kelly if he is now going to take her off to prison, at which he responds with a no.

A lot of comparisons have been drawn between 'Crisis' and 2000's Steven Soderbergh Directed 'Traffic' which tells the story of the lives of four people which intertwine because of the drug trade in America. Each experiences personal loss and despair in the ongoing war on drugs, but is helpless. Sure enough there are similarities but that film was made twenty+ years ago and the war on drugs has moved on since then and there is a whole new audience out there probably unfamiliar with that multi award winning and nominated feature film. Here the plot moves along at a good pace, has certainly got something to say about opioid addiction, and the performances of the principle cast is spot on - particularly that of Evangeline Lilly whose grief stricken role is believable and relatable. The film doesn't take us in a new direction and the third act lurches into predictable familiar territory, but nonetheless this is a solid enough story from second time Director Jerecki that makes this film worth the price of your cinema entry.

'Crisis' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-