Kurt Loder on Easy Money and The Imposter
Easy Money is a Swedish thriller thick with drug gangs, double crosses, and desperate men grappling for a way out through the bullet storms that beset them all around. Classic crime stuff, writes Kurt Loder, but in this case distinguished by the emotional connections among the characters and a flickering light of moral consciousness.
The Imposter, on the other hand, is a darkly fascinating documentary about Frédéric Bourdin, the human chameleon. In 1997, Bourdin, a 23-year-old French conman, appeared in Spain claiming to be a missing 16-year-old Texas boy, Nicholas Barclay, who had disappeared in San Antonio three years earlier. Although he bore no resemblance to Barclay (and had a pronounced French accent), upon being brought to the U.S. he was happily welcomed into the dysfunctional Barclay family as its vanished son, returned at last.