Easy Money (2012)

How sad is this?

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

This movie is the proof that in some -though rare- occasions the film adaptation of a book is better than the novel itself. ''Snabba Cash'' is based on the trilogy of crime novels written by one of the most successful criminal defense attorneys in today's Stockholm, Jens Lapidus, so there are two more films (Snabba Cash 2-''Hard To Kill'' and Snabba Cash 3-''Life Deluxe''). The writer's invaluable professional experiences and communication with real criminals benefit the realism element in the book and is reflected both in the wonderful descriptions of Stockholm's ugly side as well as the ''natural'' dialogues. As far as the film is concerned I believe that the first one is the best of the three, directed by Daniel Espinoza (''Den fördömde'', ''Child 44'') and starring a wonderful cast with Joel Kinnaman (JW), Dragomir -''Gago''- Mrsic (Mrado) and Cristian Varela (Jorge) as the three main protagonists. The movie is a penetrative look at Stockholm's underbelly nowadays, following the lives of JW, a young lad from Sweden's countryside who uses his bright mind in order to invade Stockholm's aristocrats' social circle, Mrado who is a Serbian mafioso and enforcer with a little daughter and finally Jorge, a Latin immigrant who manages to escape from prison and frantically search an effective way in order to make easy money. The lives of those three intersect and a well-crafted plot, which remains faithful to the book, is beginning to unfold in front of the reader's eyes. This is a fast-paced film with some action and really great characters: Mrado is more than convincing as the Yugoslavian thug causing pain and disaster as Dragomir Mrsic (who was himself a bank robber, arrested at 1990 and sentenced to three and a half years of incarceration in Hall prison) delivers a totally brilliant performance which shows that the Bosnia and Herzegovina born actor has a lot of potentials. His acting is one of the -many- highlights of the film while both Kinnaman and Varela deliver more than satisfying performances of their roles. I would also like to mention Dejan Cukic who is terrific in a rather brief appearance, incarnating the Serbian mob boss Radovan.''Snabba Cash'' is a fast-tempo modern-day film which proves that Europeans can produce great films of the crime genre. This is an absolute must-see for all crime fiction addicts.

Easy Money is a reasonable foreign action flick.I love Joel Kinnaman in "The Killing" and that is mainly why I gave this film a chance, but I don't think he really added much to it, being the main character. A lot of the time he was just there and the others around him gave the film life, Jorge and Sophie in particular. The plot was very good, even though I struggled a bit with the foreign dialogue and who was who. They needed to give JW more depth, with either a hell of a lot more lines or some monologue or narration, since he was often just standing there with blank looks. I also wanted more of Sophie, that interaction was pretty thin.

Does story believability not count for anything for folks who gave this movie a 10? I left after the following things took place on screen: 1. Prior to a visit to a Swedish prison a visitor is seen putting stiletto-like knives in the bottom of his shoes. He gets into the prison, circa 2010 (which doesn't have metal detector machines) and then walks into a large exercise yard seemingly dressed like many of the prison inmates exercising. He makes contact with the convict he plans on helping escape, clumsily knocks over a single guard and then the two of them race to a tall metal fence adorned by razor wire on the top. (Perhaps the guards in the yard and in the towers were on a union-sanctioned break and weren't allowed to pursue the escapees since no one appeared to be chasing the two.) Not wounded by the razor wire the two escape and are not recaptured. 2. Later on in the movie the cab driver who was covertly following pursuer two, who in turn had caught the one main prison escapee, discovers the escapees semi-automatic handgun on a forest's floor. How did the gun get there? Was the owner not searched by the two men who were intent on beating him to death? Why didn't the cab driver pick the gun up? After these two inanities took place I decided to not watch anymore of what I found to be a confusing movie up till then to begin with. P.S. In reading about "Easy Money" I learned that this was the second movie in a planned trilogy. Perhaps the filmmakers should have had a synopsis precede the escape to help viewers like me understand what had happened before. Having said this though, the two story lapses still stand out as un-thought out mistakes.

¨Easy cash¨is an absorbing crime tale with electricity pumping through its veins , being based on the novel James Ellroy Calls. An epic European thriller to rival Stieg Larsson .The Swedish import (with the cooler name Snabba Cash) arrives in North America after filling box office coffers in its Norwegian homeland. The film opens with Jorge (Matias Varela) staging a daring prison break (despite only having a year left on his sentence), and subsequently falling right back into the world of drugs and violence that clearly got him locked up in the first place. But a move like that never comes without consequences, as we meet Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) who has suddenly found . When JW (Joel Kinnaman) becomes a drug runner in order to maintain his double life, his fate becomes tied to two other men: Jorge, a fugitive on the run from both the Serbian mafia and the police, and mafia enforcer Mrado, who is on the hunt for Jorge . JW has more than his next fare in mind as he wants to escape his lower middle class past and starving student present. Opportunity comes knocking when a friend offer him a chance to deal with dark businesses . A multi-cultural pursuit of happiness thanks to cocaine begins with Jonah "Jw" Westlund . Living a double life, J.W. gets in over his head, falling for an heiress (Lisa Henni) and becoming more and more embroiled in criminal activity. it's incredibly stylish action/drama movie , a rattling good thriller with potentially global appeal . It is entirely criminal world , beautifully rendered and wildly thrilling . This is a sharp-eyed Swedish crime drama , "Snabba Cash," retitled "Easy Money" for North American audiences by The Weinstein Company who has picked it up for U.S. release, one has to to first note its trajectory . Already a hit in Sweden where it was released at the beginning of 2010, the picture's taut, intense and propulsive momentum caught the attention of audiences . This dazzler of a movie is right in his wheelhouse, given that it's about urban criminals with moral codes and strong ethnic identities, plus there's plenty of violence . Good performance by Joel Kinnaman as a finance student by day and drug runner by night to help afford the expensive lifestyle of his wealthy circle of friends . Kinnaman, who also stars in AMC's "The Killing," and will star in the remake of "RoboCop" . The motion picture presented by Martin Scorsese was well realized by director Daniel Espinosa , though being slowly paced and sometimes a little bit boring . Only a few Swedish films cross the pond and get a stateside release , on of them is ¨Easy cash¨ getting success around the world . As Swedish hit as well as hit U.S. theaters , considering that a little feat that the crime drama pulled at the Swedish box office which caught the eye of more than a few Hollywood producers. Sweden has already celebrated the first installment, giving the film three Guldbagges (the country's equivalent of an Oscar), including a win for Kinnaman for Best Actor, and moved on to the second, "Snabba Cash II," with the same artistic and technician .Director Daniel Espinosa replaces a bit of bada-bing with class warfare, thanks to the international wise guy film . Espinosa earned critical acclaim and subsequently hired by Hollywood , where has directed the successful ¨Safe house¨ with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds .