Search
What's Hot
Day-by-Day Fall Schedule
Mega Buzz
Fall TV Timeslot Wars
Shows We Lost This Season

Pusher

1998, Movie, NR, 105 mins

Pusher: Review

PUSHER
starstarstarstar
MEAN STREETS in Denmark. Low-level Copenhagen dealer Frank (Kim Bodnia) has a nice business going with blowhard pal Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen), a low-maintenance relationship with Vic (Lara Drasbaek), the stripper who stashes his drugs and a solid connection in longtime friend Milo (Zlatco Buric). So naturally, Fate sticks out its foot and trips him up: Frank owes Milo money, so he scores some additional dope on credit in anticipation of a lucrative sale, only to get busted instead. Frank has to dump the dope in a pond, and the police sweat him for a couple of days before letting him go for lack of evidence. Now he's deep in debt and the seeds of doubt have been planted in Milo's mind: Is Frank setting him up in return for his suspiciously early release? It's not hard to figure out what first-time writer/director Nicholas Winding Refn has been watching: MEAN STREETS, clearly, as well as THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, BAD LIEUTENANT and TRAINSPOTTING. But his noxious little debut feature has a vibrant life apart from its influences: Frank is a genuinely compelling anti-hero, despite the fact that he's a hateful, brutal, thug who's low enough to try and wring money out of his aging mother. Refn isn't a self-made sensibility like Quentin Tarantino: He comes from a filmmaking background — his father's an editor, whose credits include Lars von Trier's BREAKING THE WAVES — and he has attended (though not finished) film school on two continents. But he has got the gift of making tired material his own. The jittery hand-held camera, tightly focused point of view (we never know anything Frank doesn't), the relentless accumulation of bad moves and worse luck that conspire to squeeze Frank until he explodes: It's too nasty to enjoy, but too compelling to turn away from. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
Are You Watching?
Pusher
Loading ...
Advertisement

Our Partners

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. American Idol
  2. NCIS
  3. Big Bang Theory
  4. Voice
  5. Person of Interest
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Jessica Simpson
  2. Khloe Kardashian
  3. Kate Middleton
  4. Maria Menounos
  5. Kim Kardashian
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. Men In Black 3
  2. Avengers
  3. Battleship
  4. The Dictator
  5. Dark Shadows
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. The Bachelorette
  2. Young and the Restless
  3. America's Got Talent
  4. Days of our Lives
  5. Revenge
more top videos