There is not enough outrage when children die after drinking substandard cough syrup, or a pharma company is accused of exporting faulty diabetes medication. Ignorance and a misplaced trust in doctors mean that Big Pharma faces nothing more than a slap on the wrist when its wilful negligence is exposed. Add to that poverty, legal delays and a woeful contempt for human life. Medical scandals are buried as soon as they are exposed; whistleblowers are silenced in one way or another.
It is for these reasons that the JioCinema series Pill, created by Raj Kumar Gupta, is an admirable effort. Pill follows four earnest individuals who take on Forever Care Pharma, a huge manufacturer and exporter of medicines.
In a hurry to bring drugs into the market, Forever Care, headed by the glib Brahma Gill (Pavan Malhotra) and his arrogant son Ekam (Nikhil Khurana), fudge data and falsify volunteer test results. An unscheduled inspection, a hurriedly disposed file, a vigilant microbiologist and an eager journalist lead to the mighty company’s unravelling.
ncil of India in Ghaziabad, is informed of the failed inspection at one of the pharmaceutical giant’s manufacturing plants by a newbie medicine inspector Gursimrat Kaur (Anshul Chauhan) and starts digging into their files.
Medicine Council of India employee Prakash (Riteish Deshmukh), after being informed of a failed inspection at one of the pharmaceutical giant’s manufacturing plants by recent recruit Gursimrat Kaur (Anshul Chauhan), starts digging into their files.
Over at Forever Care, Ashish (Kunj Anand) notices discrepancies in test data and tries to flag it. Noor (Akshat Chauhan), who is fed up with covering film stars and aspires to be an investigative journalist, finds an important file in the garbage.
Gill – whose son is about to marry the chief minister’s daughter – deals with negative information by using violence, threats or bribes. With multinational mergers coming up, Gill wants to clean up the company’s image (the foreigners are the usual white caricatures). For the sake of credibility, Gill hired respected senior doctor Natarajan (Baharul Islam), who puts his conscience on hold for money and perks.
American documentaries and films such as Side Effects, Pain Hustlers, Inside Big Pharma: The Dark Side of Pharmaceutical Giants, Dopesick and Fire In The Blood have been brave and outspoken. Pill, which has been co-written by Raj Kumar Gupta, Parveez Sheikh and Jaideep Yadav and directed by Gupta, Yadav and Mahim Joshie, is more high-minded than believable.
The densely plotted, often naive eight-part series takes the mission of its characters very seriously, so they look solemn all the time. The step-by-step collection of evidence hinders the pace.
The race-against-time narrative moves as sluggishly as the good doctor Prakash’s jalopy. It is only towards the last two episodes that Pill takes on the characteristics of a breathless thriller-plus-court room drama, with some emotion added to the mix.
There are some unbelievable bits, such as the chief minister’s daughter acting as if political corruption were news to her, or a proposed legal solution when such cases take years to be heard. But there are also some nice scenes that depict the relationships between the characters.
These include Gursimrat’s affection for her father as well as Prakash’s precocious brat and verbal spats with his nagging wife (Neha Saraf), with both acknowledging that they have learnt to live with marital disappointment.
Though Raj Kumar Gupta’s intention to investigate the lacunae in the pharmaceutical industry and its disdain for patients’ suffering is all every well, he could have broadened his show’s scope a little more. The problem does not lie with one fictional company but with the system that allows the real-life versions of Forever Care Pharma to go unpunished. (A touch of Hansal Mehta, perhaps.)
Riteish Deshmukh carefully keeps his Uttar Pradesh accent throughout, but also plays Prakash almost too stiffly, as if the Hippocratic Oath on his wall runs through his mind in a loop. Akshat Chauhan brings energy and cheer, even as his peers never let go of their frowns. Pavan Malhotra, seasoned performer that he is, plays Gill with ease, as an evil charmer in the boardroom and solicitous son at home with his ailing mother.
