Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher was one of those low budget foreign movies that could. It was made for peanuts on 16mm by a very young film school drop out who, at the time, was only twenty-one years old. Amazing then that the film not only found an audience in its native Denmark but went on to international critical acclaim. The first film in the trilogy was released on DVD a few years ago by Anchor Bay Entertainment but it looks like the rights to all three films in the series have since gone to Magnolia who have not only re-released the original movie but made the two sequels available on home video in North America for the first time. The three films are definitely stand alone stories and you don't need to see all three of them to appreciate what Refn has done, but watching them in order does add to the experience as there are some connections between the movies and the characters.

Pusher:

The first movie follows a young drug pusher named Frank (Kim Bodnia) who is looking forward to a big deal he's got in the works. Unfortunately for Frank, things don't quite work out the way that he'd hoped and soon enough he's not only lost the cash but a sizeable amount of heroin as well – the cops nabbed him and he had to toss it. This lands him in some seriously hot water with Milo (Zlatko Buric), the local drug lord who sold him the smack, as he's not able to come up with the money he was expected to bring in.

Frank is given a week to make amends and so he sets out to do what he can to save his life as Milo grows more and more impatient with him. The clock is ticking and Frank's head is starting to become a very dark place indeed as he becomes more and more desperate with each passing day. He knows if he doesn't pay Milo back that he'll kill him, but how is he supposed to get the money in such a short period of time?

Not a particularly original story, Pusher works exceptionally well thanks to some cleverly scripted and well acted lead characters. Refn keeps the story very much in the realm of possibility and he lets us get to know Frank well enough to care about him even if he is a scumbag. We end up liking the poor guy whether we want to or not and as such, the tension is pretty effective towards the end. Zlatko Buric is fantastic as Milo, the greedy drug kingpin that Frank has to answer to and he makes for a formidable bad guy here. Refn's script ties everything together nicely and even if it is a little predictable it's always entertaining and at times very gripping cinema.

If strong characters and a realistic and clever script weren't enough to hook you, then they visuals should do the trick. Pusher is a very interesting looking film. There's a lot of handheld camera work here to give the movie a sort of claustrophobic feel and the colors used throughout the movie do a good job of accenting certain scenes for reasons that will become obvious if you see the movie (red is used very effectively here). At the same time, the style never overpowers the substance, and it compliments the story well as opposed to coming across as overly flashy and trying to hide whatever shortcomings might be there.

Pusher isn't a perfect film as there are a few moments where some of the dialogue is a little awkward but for a feature film debut from a twenty-one year old man made on a low budget without the aid of a big cast, it's a pretty amazing effort. The film is intense, it's gritty, and at times it is remarkably violent but it's always exciting.

Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands

After the success of Pusher labeled Refn as the next big thing, he followed the film up with Bleeder (which did well) then tried his hand in the U.S. with Fear X (which didn't do so hot). From there, Refn returned to Denmark and more specifically to the Danish underworld for a follow up film to his first hit aptly titled Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands.

Tonny (Mads Mikkelson) was Frank's right hand man in the first movie, until he stabbed him in the back that is, but this time around he's the focal point as he's just been released from prison and is back on the streets. Once he's free, he's reminded by a local tough that the only reason his sizeable debts were temporarily was because his father, Duke, has some political influence in the underworld but now that he's out of the joint he'd best pay up. Tonny goes to see his father in hopes that he'll be able to get him a job but his father doesn't think so highly of him but eventually dad softens up and gives Tonny an entry level position in his gang who make a healthy living stealing cars. Tonny tries to work his way up the ladder and to win his father's respect but he's got other things on his mind – a girl he slept with says that the son she just popped out is his and his drug problem tends to be a distraction. Tonny might say he wants to redeem himself but his actions speak louder than his words.

The focus of this film has less to do with crime and more to do with Tonny's attempts to make amends with his father. He's obviously got issues there, finding that he's never able to measure up as a small time thug to his father's standards as a prominent crime boss and it's interesting to see how Refn evolves Tonny's character as the film plays out. As fleshed out and interesting as the characters were in the first movie, here they've got even more dimension and depth to them and they're even more human and more realistic. Refn has essentially placed a drama about a man and his relationship with his father in the flashy criminal underworld and so we've got a human interest story full of sex, violence and drug abuse.

Mikkelson is fantastic in the lead, he's completely believable and he does a great job of portraying all the ups and downs that his character experiences along the way. His interactions with the other characters in the film are very real which makes the completely crushing conclusion hit even harder than it would otherwise.

Pusher III: I'm The Angel Of Death

The third (and so far final) film in the series focuses on Milo (once again played by Zlatko Buric) who is, to put it mildly, having a bad day. His daughter (Marinela Dekic), who is a bit of a spoiled brat, is turning twenty-five and he's promised her that he'll take care of catering her party personally. That means he's going to have to get to the kitchen and cook for a whole bunch of people. This in and of itself probably wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that Milo has also decided to quit using heroin and his cold turkey tactics are proving to be harder on him than he thought they would be. To make matters worse, the shipment of heroin that he was expecting turns out to be a shipment of ecstasy instead, and he's stuck with it. He finds himself having to learn how to peddle ecstasy to make his money back and he learns that this is a very different animal than selling heroin.

Taking place over a single day, Pusher III: I'm The Angel Of Death isn't quite as character intensive as the first two films and instead it's a little more action oriented by Refn still gives us some interesting people and ideas to enjoy as the film plays out. Milo has been established in the first movie as a bit of a local heavy, one of the biggest dope dealers in all of Copenhagen, so seeing him brought down to a very human level where he has to manage his business in and amongst the day to day trivialities we all have to deal with makes for an interesting idea.

There's an odd sense of black humor in the movie, which works well alongside the rather extreme moments of very strong violence and graphic drug use. It's interesting how Refn sort of brings the trilogy full circle with this film in that Milo finds himself in eerily similar circumstances to those that Frank wound up in way back in the first movie. The irony being that Milo was the one who put Frank in that dire spot – it's almost as if some sort of karmic justice has caught up to him. Zlatko Buric is fantastic in the lead, looking as sick as you'd expect someone in his position to look and doing a fine job of carrying the bulk of the movie.