By Glenn Dunks
Hey look, Alex Gibney is back! It was only last October that the prolific American filmmaker was releasing his rush-produced COVID-19 documentary, Totally Under Control, in time for the U.S. elections. Now he has a two-part HBO documentary about America’s opioid epidemic and its origins in crime. It's boldly titled The Crime of the Century. Given what we see unfold, and with 500,000 dead since 2000, that title is somewhat apt.
Naturally, it all comes down to capitalistic greed. You probably didn’t need me—or Gibney for that matter—to tell you that. But it does bear repeating. And over its four-hour runtime there are certainly plenty of opportunities to do so...
For that reason, it’s probably quite easy to dismiss a project like The Crime of the Century. Not as a work of quality, but as a work of substantial documentary filmmaking. Certainly, much of the basic information is well-known by now if you’ve been following the news. But even then, there’s only so much time the news will allot to white collar crime, and so even if you are well across its many tragic twists and shameless turns I am sure new and shocking insights will be revealed. Many of its revelations (not to mention each pharmaceuticals company’s extremely weird rap promo videos) could easily be chalked up to exaggeration or hyperbole, but with each subsequent admission by whistle-blowers and each alarming statistic, it becomes all too frighteningly real.
There is, of course, the Sackler family and Perdue Pharmaceuticals. Their bright idea was what became OxyContin and their aggressive marketing of the drug to both medical professionals and the greater public began a cycle of drug abuse in many (with or without entirely legal prescriptions). What was once a relatively rare form of pain relief for end-of-life patients ballooned into a multi-million-dollar industry. In some of the mini-series’ most alarming sequences, Gibney shows how doctors and politicians (like senior Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn) were wilfully and deliberately mislead into advocating for more drugs like OxyContin in the community. In another stunning thread, a former heavy-hitter for the Drug Enforcement Agency switched sides and became an advocate for the changing of law and policy in favor of the drug companies. Like I said, capitalistic greed.
It also covers many of the more direct human stories. Those of addiction and dealing that lead to death, jail and breakdown. In between their heartbreaking stories, though, it is the larger fish that Gibney has more of an interest in catching. Beyond the Sackler family there are other entrepreneurs like John Kapoor, founder of Insys Therapeutics, which turned Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate 100 times as potent as morphine, into a handy spray. There are the doctors, many who are obviously caught making fraudulent prescriptions. Andy Grieve’s editing cracks through all of this with a ready pace that allows the viewer to sit with these stories just long enough while also keeping its on the next big revelation and ensuring the long chain remains easy to follow. It’s an enthralling watch because of this as much as it is the story itself. Not that it’s a pleasant one, of course.
Gibney’s problem—if you want to nit-pick—is that his productions are such well-oiled machines that they can maybe come off as less personal. He often releases up to four projects a year, so I guess he has to follow a blueprint. But then one doesn’t watch his works expecting experimentation, stylistic or otherwise. It’s hard to fault The Crime of the Century for its glossiness if it means more people will watch his stuff. And it helps that he is a rare filmmaker whose voice is ideal for narration, balancing the right amount of anger and resignation. It’s impressive that, unlike The Pharmacist, a Netflix documentary that took four episodes to tell one single story of opioid abuse, Gibney’s two-parter manages to (seemingly) get the whole story behind the entire over-arching issue. Or at least what there is to get. There are, of course, more side-pockets and possible diversions than you can shake a bottle of pills at. But what’s here is impressive for its depth. Now something just needs to come from it.
Release: Currently streaming on HBO Max in the USA, Binge/Foxtel in Australia, and Sky/Now in the UK.
Emmy chances: Gibney is popular with Emmy voters, winning five statues from 12 nominations. This one doesn’t quite have the celeb-filled cast or big-name subject like his recent nominees, but I think it would be a compelling contender in the documentary/non-fiction special categories.