Pusher (1996)

I’ve had friends recommend the Pusher trilogy to me for a long time and even though I am a fan of Nicolas Winding Refn, I never got around to the Danish crime films that made his name internationally. With Pusher (1996), I was surprised by how low-fi it was in contrast to what Refn is now known for as an auteur – slow paced, immaculately designed, synth-scored descents into extreme violence. As his first film, Pusher has a documentary-styled look at a drug dealer Frank (Kim Bodnia – it took me half the film to recognise him as the handler from Killing Eve) in Copenhagen and uses hand-held, grainy film camera (cinematography by Morten Soburg). There is a looser, funnier energy here instead of a starkly contrasted colour graded aesthetic that is more the NWR brand in everything from Drive afterwards. Even the film’s look into the Danish crime world, while still violent and grim, was less hectic than I assumed it would be. As Frank and his buddy Tonny (a scene-stealing, young Mads Mikkelsen) drive around selling drugs, eating food, partying at nightclubs and talking complete shit, they are low level criminals. As the plot takes shape, which involves Frank taking on a big deal and extending a debt to supplier Milo (Zlatko Buric), it is a familiar arc of bad luck forcing the anti-hero protagonist into a ticking clock scenario of trying to square the money he owes before he is punished. With Bodnia’s performance, which ranges from aggressively tense to a breakdown of paralysis from the mounting stress, we see how out of his depth this character actually is. With an aggressive punk rock soundtrack by Povl Kristian and Peter Peter, Pusher is a compelling if predictable riff on Mean Streets with darkly comic details and an in-your-face chaotic energy. I look forward to the sequels, which spin-off to focus on the secondary characters, Tonny (Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands) then Milo (Pusher III: I’m The Angel Of Death). All three are available to stream on Stan. Recommended.