TdSmth5 Some Latin guy escapes a jail out in the country and makes it to his sister's apartment in the city no problem. In the meantime, JW is some working class kid studying business. He lives in the dorms and works writing term papers for his rich friends and driving a cab at nights. But he aspires to much higher circles, he parties with his rich classmates pretending to be something he's not while they are in an entirely different league. His boss at the cab company is some Arab involved in all sorts of shady affairs and JW knows it. In fact, he wants to move up and do some more lucrative work. So the Arab offers him an opportunity. He wants JW to meet up with the Latin guy because he's very important to him. As JW finds him, some bad guy is after the Latin guy, it's a Serbian mafia enforcer. JW follows them out to the woods where the Latin guy gets a good beating. JW manages to save him from the situation and the boss wants him know to take him into the dorms and take care of him. They end up becoming friends of sorts.The Serbian now is ordered by social services to take care of his daughter. Just at the time when his boss decides to declare war on the Arab mobsters over the cocaine trade in town. JW meets a lovely girl at one of the parties and gets involved with her but of course the relationship is based on lies.The Latin guy is key to the Arabs' expansion of the cocaine business. His cousin can provide them with large quantities of drugs. JW proposes to the boss that they launder the money through a bank. As coincidence would have it one of his rich friend's father owns a bank that is in serious financial trouble. JW suggests the boss buy a stake in the bank that way they could forge the documents to not alert authorities of the dirty money. He would get a good cut from the transactions. Even the bank guy reluctantly agrees knowing full well where the money is coming from. JW's business smarts impress all the bad guys.Now JW's cab-driving colleague, another Arab, decides to sell them out to the Serbians. When the boss finds out he gives the guy a good beating in front of JW who for some reason is shaken to the core by this. Apparently he's under the impression that the drug business is a peaceful matter. Then suddenly the Serbian appears and tells him that the business is full of treachery and deception and that he shouldn't expect to make a whole lot of money. Instead he will offer him several million to tell him the location of this upcoming big drug shipment. JW agrees. But someone else also has a change of heart as well. When the drug shipment arrives several characters converge on the scene and things don't turn out as planned for anyone. The movie ends hinting at a sequel and it looks like JW will have another change of heart.Easy Money wants to be some realistic gritty crime saga, but it's not. It's some emotional drama that relies on a bunch of unlikely coincidences piling up on one another and plenty of unlikely scenarios. JW is so naive even though he works as night cab driver...for a mob boss. Uber/Lyft drivers have more street smarts than this guy. And why a working class tween would be so abhorred by the slightest sign of violence is not clear either. The introduction of the little girl into the Serb's life is also ridiculous. He drags her around everywhere as if people in these immigrant communities don't have friends/relatives to help out.Direction is off most of the time and so is the music which tends to set the opposite mood of what the script requires. As all Scandinavian productions this is filmed mostly in shades of gray. We get it, it's cold there, but that doesn't mean colors have vanished. Kinnaman is a likable and charismatic guy. Some of the details the director does get right as when JW who usually is insecure and out of his element comes to his own when he is explaining financial stuff. The relationship with the girl is initially well handled but why he can't resort to her in his time of crisis makes no sense. Still, Easy Money is a wasted opportunity.

paul2001sw-1 Illegal trade is profitable because there's less competition: prohibition puts most people off, and restricts supply. But without the law to protect you, the competition there is tends to be bloody and violent (which itself serves to further reduce supply). The perfect white collar crime might never be quite as clean as it seems: if someone else wants a piece of your action, things are going to get messy. Daniel Espinosa's film 'Easy Money' is a serviceable thriller, well-done in itself but not especially original. A social climbing business student sees an opportunity to offer his services to a drug smuggling gang; but soon finds that being a money launderer is not quite as simple as he'd hoped. Some details of the plot make less than perfect sense: "take over a private bank and gain access to equity worth 30 times what you pay for it" is a plan that surely needs more explanation. What's good about the drama is that it shows the gang war from multiple sides: the characters may be rotten, but they're still all human, and each with their own mixed motives for the bad things they do. There's nothing here you won't have seen before, but the execution is better than average.

trashgang Much acclaimed this flick to be honest it's a trilogy and by seeing the first one you easily want to pick up the second one. Was it all that good as people and critics said and that even Hollywood had to remake it with Zac Afron. It's not that bad, it's not all about action, you will go deep into the characters and will start to know that the world of the mob is full of ego's going for themselves. Maybe some will turn their face away from this flick because it isn't an usual gangster flick. It's not all about shooting and killing and robbing. Here you will follow JW (Joel Kinnaman) who moves into the underground without really knowing it. But slowly he will learn the loyalty and tricks how to serve. You will love or hate this flick because it moves slowly forward and sucks you into the world of drugs and money. It's up to you to follow that world.Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Jona1988 The first time I saw this film I had just finished the book. Simply loved the book and I was really looking forward to the movie adaptation. At first I found myself disappointed. The problem according to me was how they had handled the material. The movie just felt like a too trimmed down and simplified adaptation. I understand that you can't bring the entire book to the big screen, but this felt rushed and simple. Character that felt vastly different to their counterparts in the book. It took quite some time before I saw the film again. I decided to try being more objective, not keep irritating myself over the changes. Take it for what it is and not what it could and maybe should have been. I´ve seen it several times since often with long breaks between, meaning years. It seems each time I see it I like it more. Now I think it´s one of the best Swedish thrillers, at least of the ones I have seen. A really gripping movie about criminal underworld, themes of social status, gripping characters and thrilling events. This is a brutal film not just in the action but also the plot. It feels very realistic even if I don´t really know anything about the stuff. The author of the book has personal experience of the world he writes about. The acting is very good. Excellent casting choices. Not only in their performances but they really feel believable in this world. Joel Kinnaman is pretty much as I imagined JW and Matias Varela it totally believable. The actor which makes the best performance is Dragomir Mrsic, his performance is great and his is the most gripping character. The action is among the best in a Swedish movie. Visually great with suspense at the highest. Brutal and tense without overdoing it. Not wanting to bad mouth Swedish movies but the production is really on top. I think that even if you are not familiar with the book you will have little problem in following the plot. The pace is fast but not too much. It still gives time to give us understanding of the characters. Which is totally necessary as the characters are just as interesting as the events they are in, maybe even more so.Snabba Cash is a brutal, realistic, tense and gripping. They have done a movie that I think does the book justice but also works very well as a movie on its own.