Prescription Thugs

Despite his casual aura, the filmmaker is eloquent and thoughtful.

Even before a "do as I say, not as I do" twist costs it all credibility, "Prescription Thugs" is a not very good documentary about a very important subject.

Engaging and enraging but also, alas, consistently superficial, it's a hot-button work whose easily digested nonfiction methods will appeal to mainstream documentary audiences, even if they also leave viewers hungry for greater substance.

If you want to see a documentary about the director's life and how drugs affected him personally, then go see this film. If you're looking for something about what society can do to combat a problem that has turned into an epidemic, look the other way.