Emily the Criminal

Emily the Criminal

Emily, who is saddled with student debt and locked out of the job market due to a minor criminal record, gets involved in a credit card scam that pulls her into the criminal underworld of Los Angeles, ultimately leading to deadly consequences.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Genre: Crime, Drama, Thrillers
  • Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon, Jonathan Avigdori, Bernardo Badillo, Craig Stark, Brandon Sklenar
  • Director: John Patton Ford
 Comments
  • Floated2 - 3 July 2024
    Highly breath of fresh air
    Released in 2022 and being overshadowed by bigger films around the same time such as Top Gun Maverick and Nope, this film is a lot better than initially expected and the execution is really well done.

    Aubrey Plaza is the main focus and the clear standout as she delivers one of her best and most serious performance to date. This is exactly the type of performances we like seeing her in as she truly shows she can steal every scene she's in and is highly entertaining regardless of what she's doing.

    The story is interesting and different than expected. It starts off will a very telling build and we don't exactly know where's it heading but once we see few pieces in place, the story furthers along and gets further intriguing. Everything seems to connect and smoothly flows.

    Many highlight and captivating scenes. The two job interview scenes with Plaza (one in the opening and one near the end- with Gina Gershon) are incredibly fascinating and relatable.

    These type of films involving initially innocent and desperate characters where we eventually see their transformation to victimless crime seekers are always seemingly intriguing simply for the character development.

    This film is definitely eye opening and thought provoking due to its realism and at times suspenseful moments. One instance is where an older man and woman customer in a pickup truck track down Emily taking her cash and her loaned dog. Quite tense scene but also idiotic in the criminals is how after they robber Emily, they simply stayed in their truck for a few minutes instead of immeasurably fleeing the scene.

    The climatic scene involving Emily and Youcef (Theo Rossi) breaking into Youcef's cousin's place for his stolen money was well shot, and also quite tense.

    One thing which maybe could have done slightly without was the predictable romance angle with the lead male Youcef. We knew it was coming from the beginning as it was expected but it felt slightly too cliched.

    Even with a relatively short runtime of a little over one hour thirty minutes, it seems to pack everything in every the film actually feels a little longer- which in this case is a good thing.

    Overall very strong film (should definitely have a higher IMDB rating), as it's better than a lot of films that is rated higher than it. These are the type of independent gems that people love and are wanting to see more of. Highly impressed.
  • t-d-t-m82 - 4 April 2024
    Bare Bones Credit Card Fraud
    Ok I don't get this movie. There is a credit card cloning machine which is not going to work in real life. The banks have particular data on them which is difficult to clone. I don't understand how it's an 8 minute fraud check when on a credit card fraud investigation site this has no mention.

    Even so for creative license it keeps the tension going and was one of the better scenes in the movie. The movie had a lot of stereotypes with the chancer immigrant creating a credit card fraud business and his crew of mixed ethnic people.

    It was not a good portray of migrants and the working-hard ethos which they produce. I felt that it was a bit generic and dated. The script had some good moments like when Emily gets attacked and shows some great composure in fine acting skills.

    Aubrey Plaza can act and is gorgeous. Theo Rossi as the crime boss with a Lebanese parentage was interesting given his parentage is from Lebanon. At least those references were accurate. He can act too.

    I like it when original people from countries are used as accents are important in movies and tv shows. Authentic people = good tv.

    I'm just a bit stunned by the script-writing. So many times she would have been caught-checked and CCTV is in occurance. They made it interesting by visiting different stores in a week yet if you visit the same place x times in a month you're likely to be caught and placed in fraud.

    The cards did not look real enough and they have an IP on them so you can backtrace. There was peotic licensing here for sure. I just felt that the storyline in general was very generic and the acting deserved better.

    Internship job interview was just so stupid. She's obviously going to know about those being in her field and in debt. I don't get why that was there at all. I'm confused as the age she was playing as it was hard to figure out if she was mid-20's or early 30's or just-out-of-uni.

    For the effect of the movie it was there but it didn't seem so realistic. It's an ok movie but nothing wow. Very repeatted formula. 6/10. Oh and store carparks are probably not the best places to sell stolen tv.