HAZARD (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Hazard, Emphatic

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 9, 2025

There are two ways of making money in the eponymous setting of Hazard: mining and selling drugs. Will (Alex Roe) refuses to do the former, so in his mind, that only leaves the second option.

That's the logic of writer/director Eddie Mensore's movie, which looks at the opioid crisis in an all-too familiar way. Stories like these should be told, especially with the degree of sympathy shown here, because it's too easy to blame the victims of addiction and economic circumstances for problems over which they have little control. Will's not a bad guy in this story, even though he sells prescription pills around town and to outsiders who know this is a place to get a quick fix. Someone does die because of the pills he sells, but everyone seems to be dying in this place, even if their bodies are still technically alive.

The death near the end of the first act of Mensore's story does put an extra burden on our capacity to sympathize with Will, to be sure, and the narrative itself. The story suddenly becomes less about the day-to-day grind of keeping up with bills, trying to maintain what's left of a broken family, putting aside money for the simple dream of a house anywhere else than this place, and doing all of those things while fighting and repeatedly losing to an addiction to pain killers. Those everyday conflicts feel like more than enough, but as soon as a teenage girl is found dead from an overdose on the pills Will sold her, the movie's focus cracks and never recovers.

Until that point, we do simply watch Will getting regular prescriptions for opioids from a local doctor by inventing a persistent shoulder injury. It's that simple, really, and simpler still, in theory, for others in town, who know the same doctor will write those prescriptions in exchange for a couple hundred dollars.

Mesore's perspective here is inherently compelling, because it's viewing the opioid crisis from the ground level among the pain of trying to treat real injuries, the ache of maintaining the high and absence of pain those medications provide, and the desire to make life better for those closest to these characters. If that last one means Will steals someone else's pills to give to his father (played by Steven Ogg), so be it. If it means selling the medication on the street so he can put aside money for his estranged wife and kid, it has to be that way, as well.

The wife is Sara (Sosie Bacon), who is also dealing with an addiction to alcohol but has been sober for a few years now, following the birth of the couple's son (played by Emmett Moss). Sobriety put many things in perspective for Sara, who told Will to leave and now works at an adult education facility. Will seems to be turning in a new direction, too, after showing up to bring the son to school and Sara to her job, but Sara has likely heard all of this before—and too many times to trust it.

The movie, shot on location in Appalachia, starts with a sense of authenticity, because we're watching people simply doing their best in the face of so much despair. There's almost an unspoken agreement among everyone here. They know these pills are being distributed with little thought, that people have become addicted to them, and that there's an entire underground economy revolving around them. No one says or does anything about it, because they need the medication, know someone who does, and figure there's always a way to get more or make some money if things get to that point.

The one exception, perhaps, is John (Dave Davis), a local cop and Sara's brother, who finds the dead teenager outside of town, making it his mission to crack down on the illegal sale of opioids and find whoever sold the pills to her. He eventually enlists the aid of his brother-in-law, unaware that Will is the man for whom he's looking. He's not much help, of course, but when John suggests trying to arrest a woman he suspects of selling the pills, Will is quick to point out that to do so would doom her and her entire family, because it's the only way they have any income.

That's an angle that feels somewhat unique to Mensore's movie, because there's a tragic practicality to Will's observation. What else, really, are the characters here supposed to do after being handed these pills without a second thought, falling into addiction and deeper economic strain, and not having any help? The story's early grounding in such realities is its greatest strength, which makes its eventual slide into melodrama (Sara has a relapse that feels contrived, considering how these characters aren't exactly developed beyond how miserable everything is for them) and a pseudo-thriller, as John gets closer to the truth, even more disappointing.

These modes ultimately make up the bulk of Hazard. The tone of the movie feels right, while its aims are generally sincere, but it doesn't say much new or insightful about this crisis or its characters before putting them into some routine plotting.

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