Emily The Criminal

2022 Roadside Attractions

Rated: R

Length: 1hr 37 min

Crime ~ Drama ~ Mystery ~ Thriller

Directed by: John Patton Ford

Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Gina Gershon.

“Motherf**kers will just keep taking from you and taking from you until you make the God damn rules yourself. That’s what this is about.”

Aubrey Plaza stars as Emily Benetto, an independent contractor living in Los Angeles delivering for a catering company. She is renting a room in a couple’s house and struggling financially with tens of thousands in student debt. She is trying to lift herself up and find a better job, but is encumbered with an assault conviction and a criminal record thanks to an abusive ex-boyfriend, and is having no luck. Her co-worker Javier turns her on to a side gig where she can make $200 an hour.

Desperate she calls the number and the next day goes to the address they gave her. She meets Youcef (Theo Rossi), who explains that it’s a credit card fraud ring who uses people to perpetrate the fraud purchase in exchange for a hefty fee. Emily hesitates but then, being desperate for some hope of financially getting out of the hole she’s in, agrees and goes to a big box store where she purchases a $2,000 Big Screen Tv with the fake credit card. She then exchanges the tv with the fraud group and gets an envelope with $200 cash inside.

Seems easy enough and Emily digs in deeper for more. Going after bigger and more profitable fraud purchases. Eventually Youcef takes a liking to her, and her eagerness to learn, and sets her up so she can operate on her own. He makes her promise not to visit any one store more than once a week, and if she makes more than $5,000 he gets a cut. She starts having success on her own and gets braver as the money rolls in. But it also exposes her to the unsavory characters in the criminal world and her life gets more dangerous.

Emily’s downward spiral into the criminal world, or her success at achieving financial independence depending on how you look at it, happens at a rapid pace. Emily gets more brazen and ruthless the more dangerous the journey becomes until she is forced to be the victim or the aggressor. After liking Aubrey Plaza last night in Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre , I wanted to see more of her and saw she was in this. I am glad I watched it, thought she did an excellent job of portraying Emily and she is now one of my new favorites.

There is an Emily The Criminal TV series in the works being executive produced by Aubrey but she will not star in it.

I thought it was good and definitely recommend it.

Two Thumbs Up!

Logan Lucky

2017 Bleecker Street

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 58 min

Comedy ~ Crime ~ Drama

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes, Dwight Yoakam and Hilary Swank.

“Authorities have confirmed they have recovered a Ford F-150 in connection with the robbery at Charlotte Motor Speedway some are calling The Hillbilly Oceans Seven-Eleven Heist.”

Channing Tatum stars as Jimmy Logan, a construction worker from West Virginia working in the tunnels underneath The Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Construction Company HR Department finds out about his leg injury sustained in a High School football game and fires him for not letting them know, saying it could be an insurance liability. Since he is suddenly unemployed and has the day off, he decides to pick up his daughter Sadie and take her to her dance recital. He stops at The Beauty salon where……

His sister Mellie Logan (Riley Keough) is working and promptly tells him, “Well that’s great and all you wanting to see your daughter dance and everything, but it was yesterday.” He then drives to his ex-wife (Katie Holmes) Bobbi Jo’s house to see his daughter but she’s going to the movies with her step-Dad. Bobbi Jo informs him that her husband’s Dealership is expanding and they will be moving across the state line into Lynchburg, Virginia. Jimmy, not happy at the news, and having a real bad day decides to go to The Duck Tape Bar and Grill where…….

His brother Clyde Logan (Adam Driver) is tending bar with his one good arm. He lost the other arm in a bomb explosion while serving in Iraq. Clyde, upon hearing about Jimmy’s bad run of luck today, starts reciting all the bad things that have happened to The Logan Family and how this is just another example of the Logan Family curse. Jimmy then gets into a fight with a Nascar race car driver and his two companions when they start making one arm bartender jokes and harass Clyde. As Jimmy is fighting Clyde grabs a liquor bottle and makes a Molotov cocktail which he throws into the Nascar Owner’s vehicle. As Jimmy leaves he yells out, “Cauliflower!”

Cauliflower is Jimmy’s code word for “I’ve got a robbery plan.” The next morning over breakfast, Jimmy tells Clyde about the plan he has come up with to rob The Charlotte Motor Raceway. They decide that they are going to have to enlist Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) to help with the heist. He is currently serving time in prison and they hatch a plan to sneak him out and then sneak him back in after the heist. Joe Bang enlists the help of the other inmates to create a disturbance to mask his absence from the Warden (Dwight Yoakam). They also enlist Joe’s two brothers Sam and Fish, and their sister Mellie to drive the getaway car.

It is quite the Hillbilly Heist complete with hick West Virginia accents and one liners. Hillary Swank plays one of the FBI agents involved after the crazy caper has ensued. It is a different take on the traditional heist movie. The Director Steven Soderbergh said he came out of retirement to direct Logan Lucky after he saw the script. Having directed Oceans 11, 12 and 13, he referred to Logan Lucky as the inbred cousin of oceans 11, and said he was definitely the one to direct it. I think he did a great job. It’s a hilarious hick heist complete with a one arm bartender.

I liked it, give it a go and see what you think…..

Two Thumbs up!

Marlowe

2022 Open Road Films

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 49min

Crime ~ Mystery ~ Thriller

Directed by: Neil Jordan

Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, and Jessica Lange.

“Los Angeles, a city of angels, more like the city of dirty little secrets. People pay me to look into the activities of it’s finest citizens. I’m a private detective. The name is Phillip Marlowe.”

Liam Neeson stars as Phillip Marlowe, a Private Investigator in Los Angeles, California in October 1939. A woman named Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) hires Marlowe to find out what happened to her ex-lover Nico Peterson. Jessica Lange plays Dorothy Quincannon, a Hollywood actress, an Oil baron Heiress and Clare’s mother. Marlowe quickly discovers that Peterson is allegedly dead after falling down drunk in front of a passing car.

Marlowe then visits Claire Cavendish to tell her the news of his demise but she swears she just saw him in Tijuana. Frustrated at Claire not being forthcoming with the information he leaves to follow more leads. And one lead leads to another and another. The further we go into the movie the murkier the story and plot seem to get. It’s hard to figure out what is really going on in this movie.

This film is loosely based on the Raymond Chandler character Philip Marlowe and The Black-Eyed Blonde, a 2014 Novel by John Banville. Humphrey Bogart starred as Phillip Marlowe in the 1946 movie The Big Sleep and there have been a lot of tv shows and movies with the Phillip Marlowe character thru the decades. I also discovered this is Liam Neeson’s 100th film.

I liked the old black and white Film noir movies. The slang and the wiseguy cracks. Marlowe seems to imitate those old movies on the surface but lacks any depth. It’s nice to see Liam Neeson attempting a different role than the hardcore vigilante roles we are used to seeing him in. But the dialogue fell flat for me. It was pretty slow watching.

I’d have to say I don’t really recommend this one.

There are way better Liam Neeson Movies, definitely not his best.

One thumb up, the other down……way down.