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Emily the Criminal stars Aubrey Plaza as a gig worker whose record impedes her search for stable employment. With no professional opportunities on the horizon and interest payments on multiple student loans depleting most of an already meager check from a catering job, Emily joins a ring of "dummy shoppers". Her budding criminal career is initially lucrative, but, this being a thriller, you can bet things go very, very wrong.
It’s easy to empathize with good people forced to break bad. Emily resorts to criminality because a bias against ex-convicts has rendered her unemployable, not because she's bent on violating the law. Desperation is a powerful motivator, and it makes for some seriously compelling, high-stakes cinema.
'Ambulance' (2022)
Unable to pay for his cancer-stricken wife’s experimental surgery, veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) turns to his wayward adoptive brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), for help. Instead of a loan, however, Will is given a proposition: If he helps his brother’s crew rob a bank, he can walk away with over a million–way more than the $231,000 the Sharps’ medical insurance is withholding. Of course, things don’t go according to plan; after a shootout, Will finds himself behind the wheel of a hijacked ambulance that's carrying a dying cop.
Will’s motivations are pure, and director Michael Bay and writer Chris Fedak don't make any attempt to complicate him. He's neither a career criminal like Danny nor committed to success at the expense of innocent lives. Will isn't a complex protagonist, but he’s definitely one you’ll be rooting for until the end.
'Blue Bayou' (2021)
Writer-director-star Justin Chon plays Antonio LeBlanc in a drama about a Korean-American adoptee whose life is changed by an altercation with a capricious police officer (Emory Cohen). Because Antonio's adoption was never formalized, he's flagged by ICE following his arrest. Facing deportation as he and his wife (Alicia Vikander) await the birth of their child, he begins moonlighting as a motorcycle thief to cover mounting legal expenses.
Chon’s talent as a director shines brightest during a set piece that’s as pulse-pounding as any heist sequence in recent memory. Blue Bayou is heartbreaking, visually rich, and beautifully scored. The final scene will wreck all but the most stoic viewers.
'Breaking' (2022)
Originally called 892 to enumerate the amount Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) insists he is owed by Veterans Affairs, Breaking is about a desperate man who, feeling the bureaucratic process has betrayed him, takes matters into his own hands and seizes hostages inside a bank. The late Michael Kenneth Williams plays a crisis negotiator who forms a rapport with the hard-pressed military man.
The movie premiered alongside Emily the Criminal at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and now both are opening theatrically in August. Breaking doesn’t match the energy of similar dramas--don't buy into the marketing that it's the next Dog Day Afternoon--but the film is an effective study of institutional failure led by a very committed performance from Boyega.
'Good Time' (2017)
Before Uncut Gems, the Safdie brothers treated filmgoers to this manic, acid-drenched odyssey across a single day in the life of petty criminal Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson). After a bank robbery goes south and results in his brother Nick’s (Benny Safdie) arrest, Connie gets entangled in one scheme after another to earn some quick cash. Aubrey Plaza has revealed in interviews that Good Time was a significant reference point for writer-director John Patton Ford while making Emily the Criminal.
Unlike Emily and most of the subgenre's other protagonists, Connie is ethically unmoored. He may be trying to rescue his brother, but he also manipulates everyone he encounters and goes so far as to exhibit sexual behavior toward a minor for the sake of accomplishing his goal. The movie deliberately and frequently asks the audience whether Nick is better off without him.
'Hell or High Water' (2016)
Another crime drama about siblings, Hell or High Water centers on brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who, facing foreclosure on their family’s ranch, go on a crime spree across West Texas. Two rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) try to predict their next move and provide a running commentary on rural economic decline.
The ubiquitous advertisements for debt relief agencies ground the story in a very specific time and place. Hell or High Water offers plenty in the way of genre thrills while addressing larger social themes. Writer Taylor Sheridan’s credits include Sicario, Wind River, and the Paramount+ series, Yellowstone. The movie received critical acclaim and four Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture.
'Hustlers' (2019)
Set during the 2008 financial crisis, Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers dives into the wheeling-and-dealing world of high-end New York City strip clubs. Dorothy (Constance Wu) pays the bills and takes care of her grandmother by dancing at Moves. Things are looking up when she befriends the club’s headliner, Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), but the imminent economic crisis puts them out of work. However, an opportunity arises to strike back at the very architects of their misfortune.
Given what's said about places like Moves being a reliable recession barometer, Hustlers offers a unique perspective on the fallout of the housing crash. Capers about ostensibly bad people getting fleeced by Robin Hood types play well with audiences, and this crime dramedy was indeed a smashing commercial and critical success when it came out in 2019.
'Logan Lucky' (2017)
Perhaps no one in Hollywood has better chronicled American socioeconomic malaise than Steven Soderbergh. He’s made comedies about bank robbers (Out of Sight and the Ocean’s trilogy), dramas about the effects of institutional corruption on the working class (Erin Brockovich and The Laundromat), and thrillers investigating Big Pharma and the health care industry (Side Effects and Unsane). Logan Lucky leans into the director’s strengths as both a genre filmmaker and a social critic. Channing Tatum and Adam Driver play West Virginian brothers who, having been denied a fair shake, plot to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Movies about criminal behavior motivated by poverty often follow people who’ve served in the military, and Driver’s character best fits the archetype. Protagonists that lash out against society after having been treated unfairly tend to get a pass from audiences for acts far worse than anything the Logan brothers do in this film.
'The Place Beyond the Pines' (2013)
After learning he’s fathered a child, a tattooed stuntman (Ryan Gosling) begins robbing banks to support the baby’s mother (Eva Mendes). Derek Cianfrance’s triptych also follows a police officer (Bradley Cooper) and, later, two young men (Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen) who unwittingly share a past. The Place Beyond the Pines is distinct for its multigenerational scope. The first third is a classic story of economic circumstances cornering individuals into criminal lifestyles, but the remainder of the movie is a meditation on regret and the inheritability of fate.
Luke--Gosling's character--isn't quite the criminal with a heart of gold you'll find in Ambulance, Blue Bayou, or Emily the Criminal. Selfish and combustive, he's primarily motivated by a need to assert himself. While better choices than the one he ultimately makes are available to him, there's no doubt Luke sincerely believes he has no other option.
'Thief' (1981)
Frank (James Caan) has a very specific vision for his life, but a criminal record prevents him from actualizing it through legal means. A car salesman by day, Franks spends nights burgling jewels. His success as an independent contractor fools him into believing that he’s actually free; after doing a job for Leo (Robert Prosky), a powerful black market broker, he learns that no thief selling fence in Chicago is.
Thief has one scene in particular that you’ll be reminded of throughout Emily the Criminal: Frank and his girlfriend, Jessie (Tuesday Weld), are sitting with an adoption agency rep for an interview that goes off the rails as soon as the subject of his criminal history is raised. Cornered and unable to escape his past, his only option is to bargain with the devil.