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.

Leofwine_draca EASY MONEY is a highly effective slice of Scandi crime drama that blows the socks off the Hollywood competition. It's a film responsible for introducing new talent to the international scene in the form of lead Joel Kinnaman (who went on to be the new ROBOCOP) and director Daniel Espinosa (who went on to direct the Denzel Washington thriller SAFE HOUSE on the strength of this).The story is a complex but watchable one that tells of various competing criminal factions seeking to control the local drug supply. The mix of amoral characters is what makes this film feel unique; the hero is anything but heroic, merely out to save his own skin, and thus has a kind of vibrant realism missing from all those goody two-shoes in Hollywood flicks. Plus, Dragomir Mrsic's Serbian hit-man is good enough to deserve a film all to himself, and really helps to add quality to the film.Epinosa's direction is another strength as he forgoes the typical dark and dingy look of a Scandinavian crime flick and instead creates a bright, colourful and beautiful look for the film. I had the pleasure of seeing this in high definition and it really looks a treat. EASY MONEY isn't an action film or a thriller packed with suspense scenes, but the quality of the script and plotting mean you'll be glued to the screen as if it were. Bring on the sequel!

Aristides-2 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.

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