Disc Reviews

Easy Money Review

• 15th Nov 2013

It’s not hard to see why the release of a Swedish film about three individual’s lives becoming intertwined in a drug deal should appeal to Martin Scorsese. This release from a film that was made three years ago that saw its limited UK release at the theatres a few months ago has the header ‘Martin Scorsese presents’ even though he had nothing to do with the making of the film. In the same way as the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs (2002) became the direct inspiration for The Departed (2006) so too this could well see getting the Scorsese treatment. Released by Lionsgate on November 11^th it does deliver on its promises.

One of the central characters is a hard up business student called JW (Joel Kinnaman) pretending to be something he isn’t, namely rich and privileged. He certainly looks the part – slick and fly, but can’t afford to live up to it. Matters complicate further for him when he meets a sophisticated girl at an artistos country party. Meanwhile, a South American migrant called Jorge (Mathias Padin Varela) escapes from prison and is protected by friends, takies on a job with co-conspirators at a taxi company (where JW also works to bring in much needed money). However, Jorge has a price on his head and is hunted down by a Serbian member of a rival gang who has been paid to get hold of Jorge and interrogate him with regards a bigger drugs haul from Hamburg. JW is paid 10,000 krona to save Jorge from a beating from the Serb (Dragomir Mrsic) and is paid 1000 krona a day to look after him in his student digs. JW build an unsteady relationship and the storm clouds begin to gather as JW is roped into Jorge’s Latin drugs gang and is promised big money with a haul from Jorge’s cousin in Hamburg. But each character’s personal situation draws in loved ones and threatens to explode and affect the innocent in the pursuit of what all of them promise to be one big. JW has his girlfriend, the girl he has always wanted and Jorge wants to build ties with his sister and promises to help her with her unborn baby. But it is the Serb, Mrado who has the most heart breaking story. At first we are highly unsympathetic to the violent Mrado; our first scenes with him are etched in extreme violence or we see him working out with little sign of humanity about him. When social services meet him regarding the joint custody of his daughter from his junky ex-partner, Mrado states that the 8-year-old girl, Louisa is better off in foster care – we still don’t sympathize with him. However, as he grows closer to his daughter any ensuing tragedy or thought of tragedy humanises Mrado to the point of him becoming one of the more sympathetic characters in the story.

Easy Money (in Sweden its original title was Snabba Cash) is a film that has been highly acclaimed in its home country and it is right and fitting that it should be championed by the likes of Scorsese. For sure Daniel Espinosa’s third feature should by rights become a cult film with a cult if not more popular following on from the success of such TV shows as ‘Wallander’ or the Larsson Dragoon Tattoo books and films but may end up being missed out by those who wouldn’t watch a subtitled film – although I’m sure a Hollywood remake (alas probably not one by Scorsese will be in the offing). The Stockholm locations certainly don’t fit the Stockholm of the imagination but of a rather bleak place where immigrant communities and other dispossessed people become either willingly or unwillingly involved with drugs trafficking (in this case cocaine). The details in the film are also effective with Mrado sporting a tattoo of a tiger on his back with a poster of renowned violent paramilitary leader Arkan on his wall; Arkan led the Arkan Tigers who were responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the war in Bosnia. This gives an indication that the Serb has a very violent past (he freely admits that his father sometimes beat him until he bled).

It is the well fleshed out characters that make the film so well crafted. Maria Karlsson with a whole host of contributors wrote this very tight and well-constructed script that keeps the viewer gripped from beginning till the end. Unfortunately the sequel has already been released in Sweden with a different director but word is that it is less accomplished. There are no extras other than a few trailers.

Chris Hick