Easy Money

This enthralling Swedish drama about the intertwined lives of an international group of drug dealers strips away all of the glamour and superficial action you would usually expect to find in a gangster film. Instead of focusing on violence, Easy Money (Snabba cash) concentrates on black market business strategies and the emotions of its characters, in particular Johann ‘JW’ Westlund (Joel Kinnaman). An aspiring business student from a working class background, JW cons his fellow, upper-class students into befriending him, all the while hiding his real origins and a night shift job as a taxi driver.

JW’s taxi company boss wants to use Johann’s business smarts to run drug operations between countries; JW wants the money this will generate to prop up his social status and help him keep Sophie, the girl of his dreams. Kinnaman, with his delicate features and innocent performance, proves a fantastic casting choice; over the course of the film you watch as JW’s moral choices slowly eat away at him.

One aspect of JW’s work involves taking care of Jorge (Matias Varela) a Chilean criminal living in Sweden and hiding from the Serbian mafia. Varela’s portrayal of a man who spends his life floating between drug deals is depressingly realistic. Mafia boss Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) is pursuing Jorge, but is himself caught up in an out-of-control industry which he would love to be able to leave.

Despite their flaws, the sympathetic portrayal of these damaged men – each of whom is trapped as a result of their own bad decisions – results in a film which is unusually tense and absorbing.  

Epinosa’s director’s notes include his personal belief that ‘gangster films should always be moral stories’. This belief is powerfully reflected in the screenplay by Maria Karlsson, co-written with Espinosa, Fredrik Wikstrom and Harsan Loo Sattarvandi. Paying equal attention to all its protagonists without losing any momentum, Easy Money is a thrilling cinematic experience, and beautifully edited, though the hand-held camerawork does occasionally make one feel giddy.

The film’s greatest flaw is its conclusion. After spending the majority of its running time so wonderfully intertwining the stories of its three protagonists, its ending is sudden and abrupt, and does not do the characters justice. That said, Easy Money is well worth watching; it’s a believable look into a dangerous international industry, where the goal is not just to make money, but to survive.

Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5

Released through Madman Entertainment
Rated MA