Easy Money II: Hard to Kill

Having watched a lot of Scandinavian drama I was impressed by this under rated piece of gritty film making. I do not agree with some other reviews here that this second part is underwhelming, Although it is set in the world of crime I found myself becoming attached to certain characters and being deeply moved at times by the plot lines and accompanying music. Well worth watching.

This little crime genre film rolls along pretty nicely, because it mixes different types of criminals (the weak minded or the desperate) and underlines the strange role that Sweden plays for immigrants.

The one thing I always remember about Sweden is that all immigrants hate the Swedes. This story mixes in Arabs, Serbs and even a Mexican. So the crime communities just get on with the job - and indeed Sweden itself is just a back drop here.

I didn't see the first film, but the different characters obviously knew each other, but this is only relevant later on. All of them meet some type of nexus because of something going wrong, and have to resort to more crime. Gritty without being unpalatable, we see that crime rarely pays and there is, of course, no easy money.

A compelling follow-up to the first film. This takes place three years after the events of EASY MONEY and follows the fortunes (or rather misfortunes) of a group of disparate and broken characters, each of them possessing a dangerous scheme to make some 'easy money'. Director Daniel Espinosa didn't return for this sequel, but his replacement Babak Najafi does a fine job in recreating the style of the original so that EASY MONEY II feels almost exactly the same as the first in terms of look and feel.

The plotting is engaging and the way the various sub-plots weave together is deftly done. There's definitely a tragic and downbeat tone to the story - some might say that it's merely realistic - a 'crime doesn't pay' kind of vibe that runs throughout. The performances are exemplary, with Joel Kinnaman and Dragomir Mrsic particularly shining here and making for a strong double act. There's not as much character depth as in the first film, but on the plus side the focus is on crime throughout without any of the romantic padding or the like.

It is not a crime drama that I recommend to the whole family on a sunday - or any day of the week - evening. Nothing hollywoodian in this crime film, it presents Eastern Europe DNA in the story, the plot, the violence is everywhere, every dialogue, shot. I watch it every five or six years and enjoy even more and more each time. The second movie of the trilogy is my favorite, though not necessarily the best of the three. It's a bit hard to find a lead character among the others, and don't expect to find any good guy fighting against villains scheme. So, if you crave for brutal and gritty crime films, this one from Europe is definitely for you.

The first one was a small sensation. Can Swedes make crime movies, which won't be ridiculed and parodied the week after? Yes, they could.

The same can be said about the sequel. The story is more unlikely this time and there are some more clichés, but the characters are anyway not square. They are hoodlums with complications and there's a well functioning story-telling with passable action scenes.

Not that you believe posh Stockholm being like that and why should you believe it about the subs? But movies like this have their own agenda, for better and for worse. This is for better. Can be watched, if you don't have anything more exciting going on in your own life.