Easy Money - Spür die Angst

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.

A really good action thriller with interesting characters. I do NOT think that they are plain stereotypes without Drott. On the contrary. You feel for them and it's easy to get engaged in their lives and all they experience.

The movie manages to bring forth some very sensitive moments as well as very brutal scenes with realistic violence. I especially likes the lighting when it comes to the technical part of Snabba Cash. I also liked the shots of some of the dialogue which i found innovative without being over the top. They made it very interesting to watch.

I usually look the other when it comes to Swedish movies but I really enjoyed this one.

I say watch it.

¨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 .

What I really liked about this movie is that no matter where the characters were from, they had actors from that country playing them. This is how it should be done for all films. Many times in Hollywood movies, we see an English-speaking actor playing a foreign character and you can hear an accent. Hollywood thinks they can get away with it because the Americans won't notice. This may be true but this alone is worth 1 point out of 10. If I am watching some Serbians talking among themselves, I want it to be as real as possible. Only a Serb knows how to talk like a Serb and only a German knows how to talk like a German. And the same goes vice- versa, only an American should play an American. And that's what this movie has. It has actors that play characters from their homeland.

This film teaches you how quickly life can turn the other cheek, especially in the crime world. The innocence portrayed by our lead character JW, played by Joel Kinnaman takes you right into this. He gets himself involved in a world where he naturally doesn't belong by making an important decision at the beginning of the film. The movie takes you through all of his emotions as he learns more and more about this new world.

This is a stylish, intelligent thriller with good camera-work and lots of visual style. I liked the way the movie shows international crime as a very ugly business, without rules and with lots of violence. The way a greedy young student is slowly drawn into a world that is clearly not his, is intriguing. Some elements make this film stand out above the usual Hollywood-flicks - for example the way one of the criminals treats his little daughter. This is a nice thriller that doesn't slow down, with lots of action scenes and twists. It could have done without the hardly believable love story, but I can imagine the director needed to compensate the violence with some softer scenes.