Pain Hustlers tries to turn the epidemic into a snarky comedy. It doesn’t work. Brian Douglas / Netflix October 25, 2023, 7 AM ET The opioid crisis is the deadliest drug epidemic in American history—and, of late, irresistible source material for Hollywood. TV shows such as Hulu’s Dopesick and Netflix’s Painkiller explored the rise of Purdue Pharma, the company behind Oxycontin, and its many victims. Crime dramas such as Starz’s Hightown and HBO’s Mare of Easttown, and films such as 2021’s Cherry and 2018’s Little Woods, wove addiction into their storytelling. Opioids have even played a key role in comedies; AMC’s sitcom send-up Kevin Can F**k Himself, for instance, included a plot about orchestrating an accidental overdose. Some projects have taken a more sensitive approach than others, but for the most part, they portray their subject matter as the staggering tragedy it is. Pain Hustlers, a new addition to the genre that begins streaming Friday on Netflix, takes a different tack. Directed by David Yates, who’s best known for shepherding the back half of the …