Cortechba Overrated

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

GazerRise Fantastic!

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

brchthethird Having seen most of Nicolas Winding Refn's recent work, it was kind of awkward going back to his debut feature film. While it does show flashes of brilliance, hints of what Refn's style would develop into, for the most part it's your typical "mid-level drug dealer gets in over his head" film that has been many times before (and better). PUSHER follows Frank, a Danish drug dealer who is about to make this huge deal with some Swedes. However, at the moment the deal is about to go down, the cops show up and he has to dump the dope in the river. This puts him in some serious debt to Milo, a Serbian drug lord, and the rest of the film is Frank trying to get the money to pay him back. Before watching this, I did scope a few reviews just to see what kind of film I was getting into, and one comparison I saw a few times was with MEAN STREETS. While I can see the surface similarities, ultimately PUSHER doesn't have as many likable characters and feels more amateurish. Since I don't speak Danish, I can't really say whether the acting was good for sure, but it didn't seem too bad. The production values were also pretty good for a low-budget indie film. Even the script and dialogue weren't too bad. My favorite parts were in the first 20-30 minutes when Frank and his best friend, Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen), share some Tarantino-esque exchanges about whatever was on their minds at the time. However, once the plot kicks in, whatever sense of fun the film had before was all but gone. I don't mind gritty realism, and the cinema verite style in which the film is shot was handled quite well, but I never connected with the story all that much. It also didn't help that Frank was such an unlikeable prick. For my money, Tonny was the most interesting character, but he's not in the film for too long. Fortunately I am aware that Tonny is the focus of the the sequel, so it has that much going for it. Ultimately, PUSHER is a well-made film that shows some of the talent that Refn would later put to great use, but the story has been done many times before, and better.

fritzgagi Pusher is the first part of Nicolas Winding Refn's trilogy of the same name. We get to know Frank (Kim Bodnia), who is a full-time drug dealer in Copenhagen's seedy underground. He runs drug deals and drives through the streets of Copenhagen with his good buddy Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen). From time to time Frank drops some of his drug load at his girlfriend Vic's ( Laura Drasbæk) place. The two partners seem to be moderately successful until a heroin deal goes wrong and Tonny rats out his friend Frank, who now owes a great deal of money to the people he initially got the heroin from. From there on things progressively get worse: Frank is in desperate need of money, as the guy who owes it to (brilliant: Zlatko Buric) can change his mood from friendly to psychopathic in a second. So Frank goes on his journey to scrape chunks of money from either past business associates or even his mother. He reaches his first low when he kills Tonny in a violent rush. It's the first time something disgusting happens on screen. And from there on it's one big downward spiral into the madness of the brutal underground.Nicolas Winding Refns trademarks haven't changed in the sixteen years that have passed since he made Pusher. The things people loved about Drive are already present here. The portrayal of a cold ruthless underground world. The long follow shots over the shoulders of someone walking fearlessly with their hands in their pockets. The love for detail and the spot-on depiction of the way these people talk, act, the way they elegantly exchange drugs on the streets, trained by years of experience. As in Drive the very graphic violence serves the purpose of confronting you with the brutality and ruthlessness of that world, after initially deluding you into thinking it's inhabitants are in some way cool, at the same time making you feel bad for thinking so.As things get more sinister for Frank, you are glued to the screen and hungry to know what the other two films in the Pusher trilogy have to offer.

AgentSniff This is a film about how crime never pays. Literary. Pusher Frank(Kim Bodina) is a middle level drug dealer in Copenhagen. He spends his time hanging out with his drug dealer buddy Tonny(Mads Mikkelsen) doing business and clubbing. He has also a strange psuedoromantic relationship with the hooker "Vic"(Laura Drasbæk). Frank is debt to the drug-lord Milo(Zlatko Buric), but since Milo is a nice guy and Frank is his best friend in Copenhagen he is cool with it as he trust his friend to pay him back. One day Frank get's the chance to do a big deal with the swede Hasse(Peter Andersson). Frank get's the heroin the swede wants to distribute in Malmö, but the cops show up and Frank drops the heroin into a river. Frank's "buddy-debt" has now been blown up to a enormous level, and Milo shows how little friendship means in a world with no morals.This film is a fu***** masterpiece. It's so good that it together with Pusher II: With Blood on my Hands and I'am The Angel of Death: Pusher 3 it manages to even outshine the Godfather- trilogy. Pusher is a dirty and raw ride into the bottom shaft of the Copenhagen-underworld. The criminals are scum, but they are still people. They are like real people with good and bad sides. Every actor in this film is fantastic. Kim Bidina, Laura Drasbæk, Mads Mikkelsen, Slavko Labovic and Zlatko Buric all give wonderful performances. Will cinema ever see a greater gangster character than Milo?During the cause of the film, we get to know more and more about Frank and the more we get to know the more questions pops up. In one scene Frank visits his mother and we learn that Frank grew up in an ordinary middle class home. Why did he become a gangster? What went wrong?The image quality is gritty, it feels more like director Nicolas Winding Refn took his personal 16mm camera and followed a pusher for a week. The film does not feel like a film, but a home-video belonging to a gangster who has filmed his friends for fun. It's honest, authentic and gripping.The music by Peter Peter is great. It feels very much like the stuff you would hear on the radio in the hideout of some Copenhagen mobsters. It's as gritty as the film itself.The ending leaves one speechless. I won't spoil it, but it's unforgiving and breathtaking.

Matthew Hayes The life of a mid-level, Danish drug pusher falls apart over the course of a week.It's nowhere near as good as its main influence, Mean Streets. For example, it lacks Scorsese's touch with a good sound-track - generally there's nothing in the Pusher other than normal background sounds and what music there is is what's playing on the radio. That's not to say that this isn't a good film in its own right, however.The characters are generally convincing and well-rounded and, like Scorsese's movie, Pusher gives you the illusion that you understand what it would be like to live the life of these low-level criminals. Lots of hanging around in cars and sleazy bars. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic but as things go from bad two worse fro Frank, the main character, you begin to share his stress.Some fairly graphic violence, but surprisingly little drug taking and no sex.