Pusher Trilogy (Nicholas Winding Refn, 1996-2005): Prince Charles Cinema, 11.30pm
Chicago Reader review:
'American crime thrillers have grown so bloated with pop culture and
testosterone that these three Danish noirs are arresting for their
spareness and close attention to character. Nicolas Winding Refn made
his feature debut with Pusher (1996, 105 min.), the tale of a
wild-living Copenhagen dealer (Kim Bodnia) whose business debts spiral
out of control after he dumps a bag of heroin into a fountain to avoid a
bust. When Refn returned to the same terrain several years later he
resisted the temptation to rehash the original, instead zeroing in on
its secondary characters; each of his three movies stands alone, though
watching them in sequence gives one the disquieting sense that every
hood at the edge of the frame may have a vivid inner life. Most
impressive is Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands (2004, 96 min.),
in which the dealer's lunkheaded partner (Mads Mikkelsen) returns home
after a prison term to learn his mother has died and his harsh father
has turned his attention to a young son by a second marriage. In Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death
(2005, 102 min.) a weary drug lord (Zlatko Buric) tries to juggle
Narcotics Anonymous meetings with a business deal gone bad and a pledge
to cook for 45 people at his grown daughter's birthday party. The movie
goes off the rails at the end, with a clinical sequence of some unlucky
goons being bled, gutted, and fed down a garbage disposal, but as a
capper to the trilogy, it's a shocking reminder of what these people are
capable of doing. '
JR Jones
Here is the trailer.
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