End of October Movie Reviews (Emily the Criminal, Barbarian, Fall)

I watched three newly streaming movies this past month. Each is extremely different from the others, but all have strong female protagonists. (An unexpected, yet not unwelcome, commonality!) So, which of these three films are worth your attention?  

Emily the Criminal (2022)

Roadside Attractions, Vertical Entertainment, 93 minutes

Emily the Criminal is a crime drama starring Aubrey Plaza about a down on her luck woman who becomes wrapped up in the world of credit card fraud. Plaza’s character, the titular Emily, is struggling to pay off her student debt while working a food delivery job. The fact that she has a criminal record makes it difficult for her to secure a more well-paying job, so when a co-worker tells her about an opportunity to make some quick cash, she’s interested. The stakes raise as Emily becomes more involved with both the credit card fraud ring she’s introduced to and one of the ring’s leaders, Youcef.

Plaza is excellent here in the lead role as Emily. This is a character with a lot of depth and she really delivers a great (award-worthy) performance. I hadn’t seen too much of Plaza in roles where she could really show off her acting before this movie. I wasn’t a big fan of Parks and Recreation when it was on, and this is clearly a much better part for her than playing Robert DeNiro’s love interest in Dirty Grandpa (the worst movie of 2016). Plaza is deserving of more quality roles like this going forward.

Emily the Criminal was written and directed by John Patton Ford, and is the first feature length films he’s made. Overall, this is some really solid work, and this is definitely one of the better 2022 movies I’ve seen so far this year. I’d be sure to check out whatever project Ford decides to work on next, and strongly recommend Emily the Criminal.

Grade: 9/10

Barbarian (2022)

20th Century Studios, 102 minutes

There isn’t a movie in more recent memory that I feel more conflicted about than Zach Cregger’s Barbarian. If I could describe the movie in one word, that word would be “bonkers.” This is a bonkers movie.

Without giving too much away (this is definitely a movie that if you want to check it out, it’s best to know as little about it as possible), I will say that I loved the first third of the movie. Barbarian is very clearly separated into three different parts, and the first part is expertly done in terms of creating a great level of suspense and uneasiness. I recently re-watched It Follows (one of the best horror movies of the past decade), and this first part of Barbarian led me to believe I could be watching a movie near that level of horror film quality.

Sadly, I was very, very mistaken. Though the different parts of Barbarian are all clearly connected, the overall movie feels very much like a combination of different ideas. The second chunk of the movie following Justin Long’s character I’d probably rate as being slightly below average, but by the final third of the movie, things go completely off the rails (into bad horror territory). The movie I started watching couldn’t have felt more different than where things ended up in the movie’s final third (and not in a good way).

It's also worth noting that there are a ton of horror tropes in the movie, the worst of which later in the film is that characters act in a way that makes no sense by heading towards obvious danger. I can buy that in some horror films characters don’t make logical decisions because they’re panicked and not thinking logically, but here it’s to a ridiculous extent.

Barbarian starts out as a really good movie then devolves into a gruesome, bloody mess. Pass unless you’re a hardcore horror fan.

Grade: 4/10

Fall (2022)

Lionsgate, 107 minutes

Fall is a thriller about two expert climbers who get stranded atop a 2,000-foot tall radio tower. Now, this is one hundred percent a B-movie, but, if you’re willing to just go with it and suspend disbelief, there’s some fun to be had.

The performances from the two leads are fine enough, as is the story in general. There are definitely some edge-of-your-seat moments; this would be an especially stressful movie to sit through if you’re at all scared of heights.

Fall is never great, but it’s mostly good, and in a time when most a decent chunk of movies are flaming hot garbage, there are a lot worse ways you can spend just over an hour and a half.

Grade: 6.5/10