Review of Pusher (1996) by Robert H — 03 Apr 2015

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 likeable 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.