Easy Money

The story is overcooked and the gritty aesthetic (handheld cameras, desaturated color) borders on cliche.

One of the most involving of the many first-rate thrillers that have come recently from Scandinavia.

Chalk another one up for Swedish crime-thriller novels.

What really distinguishes it from any number of drug-escapade stories is the unusual and welcome sense of Dostoyevskian moral gravity of the narrative.

The increasing action and double crosses create an ambient crescendo leading to a final anything-could-happen rendezvous.

The movie builds and builds only to land in a zone of ambiguity.

The hand-held camerawork may be shaky, and the editing flit furiously - but Espinosa has them shaking and flitting on purpose.

Espinosa conducts the swirling tale with crisp efficiency and a cold, cynical conviction that things can always go badly and get shockingly worse.