Strong performances headline Crisis, a character driven, multi-story exploration of the wide-ranging effects of the opioid epidemic engulfing America.

It has been nine years since writer/director Nicholas Jarecki released his last film, Arbitrage, and after watching Crisis it is easy to see why. The opioid epidemic is the US is one that is large in reach and complexity. In 2017, President Trump declared it a “national emergency”, and with figures stating almost 100,000 deaths per year, any movie dealing with this epidemic better approach it with the research, earnestness, and stakes that it deserves.

Jarecki does just that with Crisis, a film told in three stories: undercover DEA agent Jake Kelly (Armie Hammer) pursues Canadian drug kingpin Mother (Guy Nadon) who plans to import a large amount of Fentanyl into the US; former addict and mother Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly) investigates the murder of her drug courier son; and biologist and college professor Dr. Tyrone Bower (Gary Oldman) challenges a large pharmaceutical company after research in their latest “addiction free” painkiller proves to be anything but.

Jarecki weaves these stories in the same kind of multi-character structure as 2005 Oscar winner Crash, yet does so without the pretentious vibe of the latter. Jarecki does not play cute with his characters, or the heavy personal stakes which weigh upon them like an anchor stuck in a world of addiction and death.

For their part Hammer, Lilly, and Oldman all deliver great performances. Hammer is especially strong as a cop hellbent on stopping the flow of drugs streaming into the States, with his heroin-addicted sister (an impressive Lily-Rose Depp) the motivation for a moral centre both righteous and rigid. Lilly also impresses as a grieving mother trying to find the truth, although her characters foray into a generic action revenge plot does cheapen the film somewhat.

The most intriguing story belongs to Oldman’s professor. Drug movies often speak to the capitalist nature of the drug trade, from Tony Montana’s cocaine empire in Scarface to Neno Brown’s crack industry in New Jack City. Crisis centres on the pharmaceutical company in all its bureaucratic power and senators-in-pockets swagger, Jarecki presenting the case that this drug epidemic needs to be won from the top down. It is a message that is relevant and urgent, and much like Crisis itself, too important to ignore.