Easy Money (2010)
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Theatrical Release: January 13, 2010 (Sweden)
DVD Release: March 26, 2013
Director: Daniel Espinosa
R
Review by Richard Rey
Director Daniel Espinosa’s Easy Money (Snabba Cash) is a crime-thriller that is just as intelligent as it is entertaining. JW (Joel Kinnaman) is a college business student who gets in over his head with the Serbian mafia when he’s hired on to track down an elusive Latin American fugitive named Jorge (Matias Varela). Also on the hunt for the runaway is Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic), a mafia enforcer recently given custody of his eight year old daughter. What starts as a very thin cinematic thumbnail sketch slowly evolves into an honest portrayal of the repercussions of human beings making difficult life-changing choices. The spliced visual sequences at the film’s start are not interested in time and with good reason: some of life’s most hard knock lessons are learned when decisions are made rashly under vast amounts of pressure. JW is both a high-rolling drug-runner among the mob’s elite and an impressionable young boy who is taught that crisis means opportunity.
The study of the characters in the movie is what makes it so special. Relationships are important. Human life is valuable. It is the antithesis of Taken and the first-person shooter games which keep us from understanding that people are complex, breathing, real entities. Every character has someone that deeply loves him: for JW, his girlfriend Sophie; for Jorge his sister; for Mrado his daughter Lovisa.
Espinosa’s Swedish-Chilean upbringing undoubtedly underlined the making of this cinematic gem. Even in the film’s weakest, shakiest scenes, we can’t help but feel how greatly important the message is to its director. The deep love of the material lends to the aesthetics of the film-making. In fact, very few parts, if any, are done sloppily, without careful regard for the writer’s integrity.
Overall, Easy Money will stand as an important Espinosa film, proving that a fresh approach to the crime-thriller genre can make one hell of a piece of modern cinema
[Rating: 4]
Theatrical Release: January 13, 2010 (Sweden)
DVD Release: March 26, 2013
Director: Daniel Espinosa
R
Review by Richard Rey
Director Daniel Espinosa’s Easy Money (Snabba Cash) is a crime-thriller that is just as intelligent as it is entertaining. JW (Joel Kinnaman) is a college business student who gets in over his head with the Serbian mafia when he’s hired on to track down an elusive Latin American fugitive named Jorge (Matias Varela). Also on the hunt for the runaway is Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic), a mafia enforcer recently given custody of his eight year old daughter. What starts as a very thin cinematic thumbnail sketch slowly evolves into an honest portrayal of the repercussions of human beings making difficult life-changing choices. The spliced visual sequences at the film’s start are not interested in time and with good reason: some of life’s most hard knock lessons are learned when decisions are made rashly under vast amounts of pressure. JW is both a high-rolling drug-runner among the mob’s elite and an impressionable young boy who is taught that crisis means opportunity.
The study of the characters in the movie is what makes it so special. Relationships are important. Human life is valuable. It is the antithesis of Taken and the first-person shooter games which keep us from understanding that people are complex, breathing, real entities. Every character has someone that deeply loves him: for JW, his girlfriend Sophie; for Jorge his sister; for Mrado his daughter Lovisa.
Espinosa’s Swedish-Chilean upbringing undoubtedly underlined the making of this cinematic gem. Even in the film’s weakest, shakiest scenes, we can’t help but feel how greatly important the message is to its director. The deep love of the material lends to the aesthetics of the film-making. In fact, very few parts, if any, are done sloppily, without careful regard for the writer’s integrity.
Overall, Easy Money will stand as an important Espinosa film, proving that a fresh approach to the crime-thriller genre can make one hell of a piece of modern cinema
[Rating: 4]
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