Review of Pusher (1996) by Xgary X — 23 Mar 2010

A day by day account of a week in the life of Copenhagen drug dealer Frank whose life falls apart when a deal goes bad. Pusher is the portrait of a small time criminal filmed in documentary style that reminded me a lot of Shane Meadows in it's unflinchingly realistic approach.

The camera follows Frank wherever he goes in the seven days it takes his world to disintegrate as all of his "friends" betray and turn on him once they sense weakness; the ultimate price of way of life that revolves around self interest.

All the characters are completely believable, particularly the mildly unpleasant and emotionally repressed Kim Bodnia who won't even kiss his "girlfriend" because of his refusal to associate with whores, and the beautiful Laura Drasbaek who stubbornly refuses to accept that that is in fact what she is.

The rather unlikable characters do make it rather difficult to relate to them and a bit of humour would've gone a long way to temper this, but I would have to say that the big weakness of the film is the finale; or rather the lack of it.

I usually prefer a story to let you draw your own conclusions as to the outcome but at the end of this film I just felt that I'd been abandoned and left hanging there. It did make me want to watch the next instalment however.