The Swedish feature film “Snabba Cash,” or “Easy Money,” was enough of a hit here after its 2010 release that it attracted Hollywood studio interest and an American remake was planned starring Zac Efron. That has yet to happen, but there were two sequels with the returning Joel Kinnaman (of AMC’s “The Killing”) and now a Swedish-language series on Netflix that resembles the original not at all, except perhaps where it counts the most: at the intersection of crime and business, and the intersection of crime and immigration.
Reflecting the times—and the 10-year gap that’s supposed to exist between the events of the film trilogy and this new six-part Netflix Original—the immigrants to Sweden are no longer Serbs, but Syrian Kurds. There are others, too, among them drug dealers and hitmen (that point is made in the opening moments); the point is made throughout that the white people are considered “Swedes” by the newcomers, and the people of color something else.
But the “something else” includes emigres with dreams and high-flown aspirations, principally Leya (Evin Ahmad), the character who ends up straddling the spheres of business and crime (as Mr. Kinnaman’s JW did in the films). Working a day job at a Middle-Eastern restaurant, the would-be tech entrepreneur is in a squeeze: Her startup idea, Target Coach—a company that would determine the feasibility of other people’s startup companies—is afloat on a convertible loan taken from a ne’er-do-well named Marcus Werner (Peter Eggers). The loan is about to come due, and Leya rightly suspects Marcus is just going to let the deadline elapse and gobble up her company. She then inveigles her way into a pitch session with the billionaire investor Tomas Storm (Olle Sarri), which goes badly, and then better: Storm, a near-comic amalgam of narcissistic tech moguls world-wide, agrees to invest in Target Coach with one proviso: Leya has to be free of Marcus Werner. Which is something she can’t achieve without the cash she doesn’t have.
One distinguishing characteristic of “Snabba Cash” is the utter insularity of its various worlds. Another is the havoc that ensues when the worlds collide. This is generally true regarding the strata that make up Swedish society in the show, and more specifically true among the characters: When Leya, a widow and single mother, becomes romantically involved with a wedding singer named Salim (Alexander Abdallah), she doesn’t know Salim is also a henchman of the drug kingpin Ravy (Dada Fungula Bozela)—who happens to be the brother of Leya’s murdered husband and uncle to her son. Salim isn’t aware of the connections either, and as he tries to cut his drug ties and Leya debates whether to get the money she needs from Ravy—something she knows will come back to bite her—the various tensions further isolate the characters from each other. A sense of impending revelation, as well as doom, is ever-present.
For those allergic to subtitles, Netflix offers a remedy: You can watch “Snabba Cash” in the original Swedish with English subtitles or, with a click of the remote control, in a dubbed English version. (I would recommend the former, but it’s a personal preference.) A more common cable-series problem—getting a viewer through the introductory episode and establishing the characters and their relationships—is a knottier one for “Snabba Cash,” because it’s more involved than most shows of its ilk.
The Link LonkApril 07, 2021 at 03:52AM
https://www.wsj.com/articles/snabba-cash-review-easy-money-is-hard-to-come-by-11617742359
‘Snabba Cash’ Review: Easy Money Is Hard to Come By - The Wall Street Journal
https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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