“Emily the Criminal” is out to capture this particular moment in time. In an age of financial instability and fear, here comes writer/director John Patton Ford with a tale of one woman’s quest to free herself from the bondage of debt, student debt to be specific. It’s a topic that’s commanded attention and debate over the last few years, and Ford is trying to make such a personal struggle easily understood for audiences, using an underworld journey to best identify the pressures of payments in an age of growing poverty. Ford is on to something different with “Emily the Criminal,” which has a crisp understanding of frustrations and anger tied to the loan business, providing a universal sense of stress, which makes for powerful cinema. The rest of the feature isn’t that well-observed, with Ford turning to formula to connect the dots with his character study, which doesn’t bring much texture to the viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com