Body Brokers is a crime drama from writer/director, John Swab. It follows a young junkie, Utah (Jack Kilmer), who has fallen down the addiction rabbit hole to the point of robbing convenience stores with his girlfriend, Opal (Alice Englert). However, one day they bump into a seemingly helpful stranger, Wood (Michael K. Williams), who offers to help them sober up at a clinic in Los Angeles. Utah decides to go while Opal refuses. Once there, he manages to sober up, but he also comes to learn about the business behind these clinics and the potential for profit to be made.
Wood ends up taking Utah under his wing, as they work as brokers for a firm that supplies junkies for clinics. There’s a lot of mechanisms involving insurance, recruiting addicts, and repeating cycles of addicts being paid to go through treatment centers for a short period of time before leaving, and bringing in more addicts, which leads to them getting a cut. It’s a very simplified explanation, but it ultimately boils down to fraud, and it’s a scheme that Utah struggles to mentally cope with, especially when Opal ends up getting caught in the cycle when she shows up in Los Angeles.
What this film reminded me of the most was Ramin Bahrani’s criminally underseen 2014 drama, 99 Homes. In that film, Andrew Garfield plays a man who has been evicted from his home, and ends up working for a guy played by Michael Shannon, who runs a business in evicting people from their homes. The only difference between the business in 99 Homes versus Body Brokers, is the fact that the scheme Utah runs with Wood is technically illegal, but they both revolve around the idea of a capitalist system that allows for vultures to profit off the hardships of others, taking no interest in helping, only exploiting.
Swab’s approach to the material is a bit clumsy at first. Utah’s story is portrayed in a very grounded way, throwing us into the nasty details of his day-to-day with Opal. However, through out the first 45 minutes or so are these voice over narrations from Frank Grillo, who later shows up as Vin, who is the head of a set of treatment clinics that does business with Wood. Grillo’s general vibe is more along the tone of something like The Big Short or The Wolf Of Wall Street, the kind of snarky, fourth wall breaking kind of delivery that doesn’t match the otherwise gritty drama we had previously witnessed.
After the first 45 minutes, that element takes a backseat, as we get into Utah making his way from ex-junkie to a full on businessman, working alongside Wood, and the feelings of conflict that begin to arise in him. There is also a bit of a romance that begins to build with May (Jessica Rothe), who is the receptionist at the clinic Utah was admitted to. They have decent chemistry together, but it doesn’t go anywhere, especially due to the nature of the ending, which I honestly didn’t find particularly satisfying, though I get that it’s that way by design.
The performances are solid, and I would say that the work put in by the actors do a good job in elevating a script that I think is punching above its weight overall. Jack Kilmer really sells the inner turmoil of the back half of the film. Michael K. Williams is unsurprisingly very charismatic, which works for his role as a sleazeball with a heart of gold. Jessica Rothe is very endearing, though she doesn’t get much to do. Melissa Leo makes a strong impression as a therapist in the clinic Utah went to. Peter Greene also makes a brief but great appearance as a corrupt doctor who is in on a surgery scheme for opioid addicts. Alice Englert probably comes out of this the best, even as a supporting player, because she brings a raw energy with layers of anger and sadness.
Occasionally, the ambitions of Body Brokers to be an Important Film™ sometimes overcomes its ability to tell its story in a thematically cohesive way without going too obvious in its messaging. Its ideas get stretched too thin, and sometimes the nuance gets lost in the process. That said, the story is an engaging one, I was invested in Utah, and I found myself hoping he would make it through some tense situations, and break from the cycle of both addiction and being a part of a predatory industry. But like I said, the ending does leave the film on a sour note, and while it’s not like it isn’t without purpose, I just don’t think it necessarily earns the move it makes. However, the film does have a number of effective moments, and I’m glad it’s shining a light on something that is worth being educated about, even if I wished it came together in a way that was a bit more polished and sophisticated in its approach.
Body Brokers is now out in theaters and on digital and on demand.