Direction: John Patton Ford
Country: USA
Drowned in debt and with a criminal record on assault, Emily (Aubrey Plaza) has a hard time finding a job that pays her well in Los Angeles. She can only experience some financial relief when joining a group of credit card scammers co-led by Youcef (Theo Rossi), a foreigner with whom she gets emotionally involved. This man pursues his own dreams and goals, but it’s Emily who faces most of the danger when the bar is raised and the jobs get bigger.
This is the story proposed by director John Patton Ford in his very first feature, which counterweights familiar crime thriller and grounded indie drama. The script he wrote might be thin, but there’s an energy captured by the camera that makes the suspense palpable and gives credibility to the emotions. It wouldn’t be the same without Plaza (Ingrid Goes West, 2017; Black Bear, 2020), who knows how to convey pungency in the face of trouble. Playing a brave woman who’s definitely not the passive kind, she surfs the prickly tension of every scene with fierce determination.
The film uses no fireworks, opting for clear views instead of shading assumptions. Yet, the finale is most likely to surprise you. If you like your crime thrillers slightly smoked with fraught anxiety, then you should be able to commune with this film at a satisfactory level.
