Easy Money | |
---|---|
Directed by | Daniel Espinosa |
Screenplay by | Maria Karlsson |
Story by | Daniel Espinosa Abdullahi Ahmed Sattarvandi Fredrik Wikström |
Based on | Easy Money by Jens Lapidus |
Produced by | Fredrik Wikström |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Aril Wretblad |
Edited by | Theis Schmidt |
Music by | Jon Ekstrand |
Production company | Tre Vänner Produktion AB |
Distributed by | Nordisk Film |
Release date |
|
Running time | 124 minutes |
Country | Sweden |
Languages | Swedish, Spanish, Serbian |
Budget | SEK 30 million [1] |
Box office | SEK 59.1 million [2] |
Easy Money (Swedish : Snabba cash) [3] is a Swedish crime thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa (in his directorial debut) that was released on 15 January 2010. It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Jens Lapidus. [4] Joel Kinnaman stars in the lead role of Johan "JW" Westlund, a rather poor man living a double life in the upper class areas of Stockholm. After meeting a wealthy girl, he is enticed into the world of organized crime and begins to sell cocaine to afford his expensive lifestyle. Easy Money was well received by critics and was a hit at the box office.
Two sequels to the film have been made: Easy Money II (2012) and Easy Money III (2013). In 2010, Warner Bros. announced their plans for an American remake of Easy Money starring Zac Efron, [5] but the project was shelved. [6] In 2021, the TV series Snabba Cash was released on Netflix, containing 6 episodes based on the original novel.
Johan "JW" Westlund is a man living in Stockholm and is a promising student at the Stockholm School of Economics. JW is originally from the Norrland region in Sweden where his father, who has a slight drinking problem, works in a saw mill, while his mother works in an employment agency. JW is wracked by the disappearance of his sister, Camilla, four years earlier. JW feigns the appearance of a stekare (in Swedish parlance, a lifestyle based on flaunting one's apparent wealth), actually leading a double life driving taxi illegally to finance his expensive life on Stureplan. A romance with the upper-class girl Sophie leads to him being enticed into the world of organized crime. Abdulkarim, who is running the taxi business, offers JW a job in helping him start his cocaine business.
Jorge Salinas Barrio is a Chilean man who went to prison after being caught in the drug business. He has now escaped and is on the run from the police. Jorge knows everything about cocaine. He has a plan: to avenge those who wronged him, among them Serbian Mafia boss Radovan Kranjic, and to make one final cocaine delivery and then leave the country for good.
Mrado Slovovic, a hitman who runs errands for the Serbian Mafia, is sent by Radovan on a mission to take care of Jorge. At the same time, he has to struggle with taking care of his eight-year-old daughter, who he is forced to take with him on his job because the mother has a drug addiction.
These three characters cross paths through their dreams about quick earnings. Once JW and Abdulkarim begin their cocaine business, they want to expand. Abdulkarim has heard that Jorge, who has escaped from prison by this time, has learned everything about the cocaine business while in prison. Simultaneously, Jorge has tried to blackmail Radovan, the Serbian Mafia boss. Mrado is tasked by Radovan to kill Jorge to prevent him from helping any of Radovan's competitors. Meanwhile, JW is promised 20,000 SEK if he can bring Jorge back to Abdulkarim alive. After noticing Mrado following Jorge, JW tails both of them, losing sight of Jorge when he gets on a bus. JW fortuitously finds them when he notices the car he saw Mrado drive away in standing in a forest clearing. When he enters the forest, he finds Mrado and one of Radovan's henchmen savagely beating Jorge. JW sets off the car alarm of the Serbian attackers to distract them. Meanwhile, Jorge hides from his attackers, who then travel further into the forest to find him. JW approaches a badly wounded Jorge and takes him back to his dormitory. Abdulkarim visits JW and Jorge and helps Jorge recuperate. Though hesitant about keeping Jorge in his dorm room, JW relents when Abdulkarim offers him 1000 SEK for every day Jorge stays. As Jorge recuperates, he learns more about JW and the two become friends.
At one of the jetsetter parties, JW falls for Sophie (Lisa Henni), the on and off girlfriend of jet-setter Carl. JW learns that Carl's father's investment bank is in serious financial trouble and Carl may not be able to afford the extravagant stekare lifestyle. This becomes important when Abdulkarim asks JW to figure out how they can launder the 20,000,000 SEK profit they will eventually earn. JW proposes that they buy shares of Carl's father's failing bank, giving it a stimulus that would not only save the business but immediately increase the price of the shares, making it more profitable. JW acts as the front man for Abdulkarim's cocaine syndicate as they attempt to purchase the bank. Though Carl's father has reservations, he eventually relents and accepts the deal.
Soon after, JW and the drug syndicate visit Jorge's drug dealer friends in Germany. The drug dealers show how they smuggle drugs by inserting drug capsules under the skin of dogs and then letting the incision heal and the hair grow back which takes two months according to the drug dealers. The drug dealers also place drug capsules in the leaves of young cabbage plants and then let the cabbage grow a full size head around the capsule. Abdulkarim's syndicate ultimately negotiates for a shipment of 40 kilos of pure cocaine. The drug dealers want the money deposited in a Swiss account. JW immediately raises concerns about that plan, arguing that Switzerland is not that secret anymore and recommends an account in Andorra or Liechtenstein instead. This gains the drug dealer's trust and allows the transaction to run smoothly. Later, Jorge advises that JW that he is unlikely to see the money promised by Abdulkarim. JW visits Abdulkarim in his hideout and, while talking with Abdulkarim, realizes that what Jorge said was true.
Mrado is waiting with his daughter at JW's apartment building and offers JW two million for assistance in raiding Abdulkarim's drug shipment. JW agrees on the understanding that no one will get hurt. The drugs arrive in an eighteen-wheeler full of cabbages. Jorge and Abdulkarim's men start repackaging the drugs in a warehouse. Meanwhile, JW assists Mrado and one of Mrado's Serbian friends in entering the warehouse. A firefight occurs and one of Abdulkarim's men is seriously wounded immediately. JW is shocked by the turn of events. Jorge realizes that JW has double crossed them. Meanwhile, Radovan has phoned the police to report the drug delivery. JW grabs a weapon and holds off the Serbians as the police arrive and a firefight breaks out. JW and Jorge escape to the rooftop and eventually get to a car. Mrado's friend is seriously wounded, but intends to hold off the others so that Mrado can escape. As Mrado runs from an alley, he is hit and seriously injured by the car with Jorge and JW in it. JW, the least injured of the three, is angry with Mrado who had promised that no one would get hurt. JW shoots Mrado. JW then fires shots at the policemen closing in, thereby allowing Jorge to escape in the car. JW then surrenders to the police. Mrado is taken away by ambulance and calls his daughter on the way to the hospital. Jorge drives off into a forest and is last seen running through a field similar to the field that he ran through after escaping from prison.
The movie ends with JW in prison with tattoos of "JW" and "Camilla" on his arms. He is visited by Sophie who still cares deeply for JW, but she is leaving Sweden to stay at her parents’ house in France. She asks JW if he cares for her. JW appears to care for Sophie, but says nothing. As Sophie leaves, she relays a message from Jorge who says that Paola had a baby girl. JW says that if Jorge calls again, tell him that '"Mr. Brains" says 'Hello.'"
Jens Lapidus released the novel Snabba cash in 2006. It received praise from critics and was a success in terms of sales. Ever since it came out, Swedish director Daniel Espinosa dreamed of getting the opportunity to adapt it into a film. The opportunity came only a few years later when he met film producer Fredrik Wikström who asked him to direct the film. Espinosa has said that the book is important to him because of his Chilean roots and because he was raised in the Swedish suburbs. "When I lived in Skogås there were not so many Chileans, so I hung out with Yugoslavians [...] until I was 17 years old. Then a lot of crazy stuff happened and I ended up at Sigtuna with a bunch of upper class brats." [7]
Joel Kinnaman was cast in the lead role of Johan "JW" Westlund. He told Helsingborgs Dagblad that "It is a difficult role and a difficult character to play. I love my character deeply, but he makes a lot of decisions in life that are idiotic and he chooses paths that lead to disaster and that gets unbelievably painful consequences for both him and the people that mean something for him." [7] Filming began in March 2009 in Stockholm. [8] Other shooting locations include Gothenburg and Germany (9–11 June 2009). [9]
In December 2009 Lapidus told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet that he had seen an early version of the film and "it feels good. The film is based on my book, but is at the same time a story of its own. Naturally my main characters are in it and they have managed to capture the authentic feel, but I haven't written the manuscript, I've only given pointers." [4] Lapidus has written two back-to-back sequels to Snabba cash, which are also to be adapted into films. Filming began in the summer of 2011 with Babak Najafi as director and most of the main cast members from the first film. [3] Easy Money II: Hard to Kill was released in August 2012 [10] and the second sequel Easy Money III: Life Deluxe was released on 30 August 2013. [11] [12]
Easy Money was released in Sweden on 15 January 2010. [3] At the Berlin Film Festival film festival that year it raised international interest. [13] The American film studio The Weinstein Company soon acquired the rights, after a bidding war, to distribute the film in the United States, Germany, and Italy. [3]
After a bidding on the project, involving Warner Bros., Universal Studios, Summit Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, The Weinstein Company, and Mandate Pictures - Warner Bros. won the rights to produce an American remake. [13] Zac Efron will star in and produce the film. [3] [11] [13] [14] [15]
Fredrik Wikström, a producer of Swedish film, will also be a producer on Warner Bros.'s remake. He commented on the hype of the original film in Sweden: "We had a huge hype for the film before anyone had even seen it; everyone was hoping it would be the next Stieg Larsson. The film premiered January 15 in Sweden, and the eyes were on us from the start. Somehow a bootleg DVD of the film made it to L.A. and was passed around. We started getting calls. Less than three months later we did the deal with Warner Bros." [3]
Easy Money was an instant hit in Sweden with more than 100,000 tickets sold during the film's first weekend in theaters, topping the box office charts. [16] Aftonbladet critic Karolina Fjellborg gave it four out of five stars, commenting that Espinosa "has made a believable, well-acted, nice-looking, and surprisingly thrilling film, with a nerve and a pace that is often missing in Swedish thrillers." She also praised the cast of the film, Kinnaman in particular. [17] Expressen 's Miranda Sigander wrote that Kinnaman plays JW "in a natural and convincing way and steals the show with his charisma." [18]
Mats Johnson of Göteborgs-Posten gave the film a 3/5 rating for "the realism and the intensity in the best scenes of the film, and for the convincing acting by the main cast members." [19] He added, however, that the film lacks coherence and that the story becomes disjointed because of the constant jumps between the three main characters. [19] Sveriges Television's Jerker Peterson, on the other hand, thought that Espinosa and his writer Maria Karlsson were able to "nicely keep together the straggling story." He gave the film a rating of four out of five and commented that it is "altogether a really sharp thriller and a good start to the Swedish film year." [20]
In his book Swedish Sensationsfilms: A Clandestine History of Sex, Thrillers, and Kicker Cinema, Daniel Ekeroth notes that the movie is, unlike many other Swedish crime films, "without any tired old inspectors" and that that fact is "reason enough for praise!" He continues by saying that Snabba Cash has "sharp pacing, a fresh storyline, and above all a sinister portrayal of Stockholm as a cold and dark place." [21]
Three Men and a Baby is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Leonard Nimoy. It stars Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson as three bachelors as they attempt to adapt their lives to de facto fatherhood with the arrival of the love child of one of the men. The script was based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin
Pusher is a 1996 Danish crime thriller film co-written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, in his film debut. A commercial success considered to be influential in Danish film history, it marked Mads Mikkelsen's film debut.
Fares Fares is a Swedish actor, producer, and director. He is known for his collaborations with Swedish director Tarik Saleh in The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) and Boy from Heaven (2022). He has received various accolades, including a Guldbagge Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and two Robert Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
The Serbian mafia, or Serbian organized crime, are various criminal organizations based in Serbia or composed of ethnic Serbs in the former Yugoslavia and Serbian diaspora. The organizations are primarily involved in smuggling, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking, assassinations, heists, assault, protection rackets, murder, money laundering and illegal gambling. Ethnic Serb organized crime groups are organized horizontally; higher-ranked members are not necessarily coordinated by any leader. According to criminologists and law enforcement authorities, the Serbian mafia is the most powerful in Europe.
Easy Money may refer to:
Zachary David Alexander Efron is an American actor. Efron began acting professionally in the early 2000s and rose to prominence as a teen idol for his leading role as Troy Bolton in the High School Musical trilogy (2006–2008). During this time, he also starred in the musical film Hairspray (2007) and the comedy film 17 Again (2009).
Jens Jacob Lapidus is a Swedish criminal defense lawyer and author known for his books about the Stockholm underworld.
Easy Money is a 2006 novel by Jens Lapidus. The paperback was the fourth bestselling Swedish novel of 2007.
Joel Boris Spira is a Swedish film, television, and theatre actor.
Charles Joel Nordström Kinnaman is a Swedish actor. He first gained recognition for his roles in the 2010 Swedish film Easy Money and the Johan Falk crime series. Kinnaman is known internationally for his television roles as Detective Stephen Holder in AMC's The Killing, Takeshi Kovacs in the first season of Altered Carbon, and Governor Will Conway in the U.S. version of House of Cards. He has also played Alex Murphy in the 2014 RoboCop remake, and Rick Flag in the Warner Bros. film adaptations of the DC Comics anti-hero team Suicide Squad (2016), as well as its sequel, The Suicide Squad (2021). Since 2019, he has starred as NASA astronaut Ed Baldwin in the Apple TV+ science fiction drama series For All Mankind.
Pusher is a 2012 British crime thriller film directed by Luis Prieto. It is an English-language remake of Nicolas Winding Refn's 1996 film of the same name, the second remake following a 2010 Hindi remake. The film stars Richard Coyle, Agyness Deyn, Bronson Webb, and Paul Kaye.
The Serbian-Montenegrin mafia in Scandinavia, also known as "Juggemaffian" is an organized crime group in Sweden and Denmark. The foundations of the gang began during the mass immigration of Yugoslav guest-workers to Sweden in the 1970s. Its power base is in the cities of Stockholm and Copenhagen, and territory in Malmö and Gothenburg, among other cities in western Sweden. They received significant media attention in Sweden especially during the 1990s, thanks to flashy top-ranking members such as Dragan "Jokso" Joksović. The founder and first leader of the gang is believed to be warlord Željko "Arkan" Ražnatović, and the current leader is alleged to be Milan Ševo.
Louis Matias Karl Padin Varela is a Swedish actor.
Sumas y Restas is a 2004 Colombian drama film directed and co-written by Víctor Gaviria. The plot follows a young real estate developer who ventures into cocaine trafficking lured by the opportunity of making quick money, but his life descends in a spiral of drugs and violence. As he did in his previous films, Víctor Gaviria opted to cast non-professional actors.
Claudio Andres Oyarzo Muñoz is a Swedish metal musician and youtuber. He currently lives in Gothenburg and played guitar with the melodic rock act Minora from Gothenburg and the bass with the Gothenburg-Stockholm metal band The Resistance. He played as a session member for a few months before he was asked to join the band, which happened during the video recording of the first single from the album Scars, called "Clearing the Slate".
We Are Your Friends is a 2015 drama film directed by Max Joseph and with a screenplay by Joseph and Meaghan Oppenheimer, from a story by Richard Silverman. The film stars Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski and Wes Bentley, and follows a young Los Angeles DJ trying to make it in the music industry and figure out life with his friends.
Easy Money II: Hard to Kill is a 2012 Swedish thriller film directed by Babak Najafi and written by Peter Birro and Maria Karlsson. Based on Jens Lapidus's novels Easy Money and Aldrig fucka upp, it is the second installment in the Easy Money film series and a sequel to the 2010 film Easy Money. Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, and Fares Fares reprise their roles as four criminals of different backgrounds who all become involved in the hunt for money belonging to the Serbian mob. A third film, Easy Money III: Life Deluxe, was released in 2013.
Easy Money III: Life Deluxe is a 2013 Swedish thriller film directed by Jens Jonsson, based on the novel Livet Deluxe by Jens Lapidus. The film is the third installment in the Easy Money film series, following Easy Money and Easy Money II: Hard to Kill. Matias Varela and Joel Kinnaman reprise their roles as career criminal Jorge and business student turned convict JW, respectively, alongside returning cast members Dejan Čukić and Madeleine Martin and series newcomers Martin Wallström and Malin Buska. Set after the events of the second film, Easy Money III: Life Deluxe continues the stories of Jorge, JW, and the Serbian mob as their paths intertwine through their criminal activities.
Fredrik Wikström Nicastro is a Swedish film producer and CEO and founder of Hope Studios, a European film studio with the mission to bring hope and inspiration to people everywhere.
Snabba Cash is a 2021 Swedish television series written by Jens Lapidus and Oskar Söderlund (screenwriter) and directed by Jesper Ganslandt. It is based on Lapidus' Stockholm Noir novel trilogy, the first of which was adapted into three films: Easy Money (2010), Easy Money II: Hard to Kill (2012), and Easy Money III: Life Deluxe (2013). The series takes place in Stockholm, ten years after the film trilogy.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)