of all the people affected by big drug company scams, do we really care about the ethical dilemmas faced by gorgeous salespeople?
Side Effects (2005)
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Reviews Counted: 9
Fresh: 1
Rotten:8
Average Rating: 4.1/10
Synopsis: Karly Hert has spent the last ten years selling drugs...legally, that is. She works for one of corporate America’s darlings, the pharmaceutical industry. Although conflicted on a daily basis by the values within the industry, an... Karly Hert has spent the last ten years selling drugs...legally, that is. She works for one of corporate America’s darlings, the pharmaceutical industry. Although conflicted on a daily basis by the values within the industry, an industry driven by profits at the expense of patients, Karly has been seduced by the golden handcuffs of corporate America. These perks serve as a buffer to a past she would rather leave behind. Enter, ZACH DANNER. Zach is a salt of the earth kind of guy who challenges Karly’s entire value system. Zach walks his talk and encourages Karly to do the same. Inspired by Zach and their blossoming relationship, but unable to quit outright, Karly comes up with a plan to incorporate her values into her day to day activities... regardless of direction from upper management. Karly decides to be genuine and brutally honest as she consults physicians and staff on her company’s latest and greatest drugs. As Karly works her plan over the next few months, something very ironic begins to happen. Although Karly does her job exactly opposite of the way she is directed, her sales numbers go through the roof. Karly quickly becomes the fastest rising star in the organization. Stunned by her success, Karly begins to slip back into the corporate and material abyss. As she gets sucked backed in, her relationship with Zach falters. The corporation begins to groom Karly for bigger and better things. Management track and big money for promoting an upcoming blockbuster drug are dangled before her. Karly then stumbles across some explicitly unethical marketing practices that have and will compromise patient safety. During a national industry meeting, Karly is honored as Rep of the Year. As Karly takes the stage, she if faced with the biggest choice of her life…to sell out or blow the whistle? As she begins her speech, she reiterates that her ultimate goal is the same as her corporation's "to protect and prolong human life" ... -- Official Site [More]
Starring: Katherine Heigl, Lucian McAfee, David Durbin
Starring: Katherine Heigl, Lucian McAfee, David Durbin
Director: Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau
Director: Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau
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Reviews for Side Effects
While Slattery-Moschkau is obviously coming from a very earnest place -- a card before the final credits compares the annual budget for the pharmaceutical industry to that of her own film -- it doesn’t make the overall effort any less clumsy.
Spectacularly lame dialogue, stilted direction, amateurish production values and a soundtrack that distracts from the film as a whole.
This is an agitprop effort to get viewers to think about the side effects of one industry's profit motive and how that affects consumers.
It's when the film loses the laughs and turns into a heavy-handed melodrama in the third act that the film sputters.
This scrappy look at the pharmaceutical industry is a hard pill to swallow.
The material is all there to be a scathing, timely commentary on the pharmaceutical industry - when presented this way, it's a watered down version of the truth.
With enough material for a nice short, Side Effects is stretched past the breaking point at ninety-nine minutes.
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by: MRoth 5/11/06
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