Pusher

Pusher is a flat film, leaving you waiting for a climax that never happens. The films gives you a chocolate box assortment of every character in every drug related film you can think of. You have the loose cannon side kick, the stripper girl friend, the pathetic junkie and of course the drug dealer heavies. The only person that manages to escape two dimensions is Zlatko Buric the main bad guy who gives a standout performance as the smiling psychotic Milo.

For all its style and flashing lights and camera tricky, lies a poorly executed film and I found myself just waiting for it to be over not caring who lives or dies. For it attempts to be modern it's also quite a dated film and seems more like something from the early 1990's. Avoid this film and just buy the amazing orbital sound track. I'm just happy this film was made so that orbital made another album. Bad film! Great Music!!

I have to say this 'remake' was incredibly disappointing. well to say that i was expecting much is not quite accurate, in fact, i was expecting not very much. however, what i saw with this film was utter mediocrity by this director with poorly directed scenes which if properly produced would not have made the final cut. overall it's an amateur production of this cult film remake. around the halfway point it did in fact start to pick up its pace and there were some memorable scenes. overall though i have to say most scenes were unmemorable. the cliché British techno/house score did not help matters. a big plus was seeing the actor who portrays Milo in this film, as he starred in 2 of the original pusher films by refn. he actually made the film enjoyable to watch at times by his performance. ultimately, Refn had far less of a budget to make his pusher film compared to the budget Luis Prieto had to work with. So to create such a lackluster effort all around by Prieto and the crew is quite a disappointment. Refn had stated early on he did not want to interfere with this remake, though I think he should have considering it does reflect on him somewhat, albeit indirectly.

5.5/10

Nothing wrong with this film but when you've seen the original it pails in comparison. The original had style, it had first class acts and personalities that felt real and the situations were scary and threatening. This remake is tame and embarrassing to watch. Hearing the old lines delivered with British accents completely kills the script...even seeing Milo back was uncomfortable! Trust me, the original is a 10 out of 10 for me but this...this is lame...almost laughable BUT it did still hold up as a decent crime thriller but only just and I feel I'm being generous!

I can't think of any reason to see this other than boredom...or curiosity! ...just watch the original... ;)

For some strange reason, I thought this film being executive produced by NWR would render better results. Alas, I was duped again by marketing.

I should have known. After all, what made the original Pusher (and it's two sequels) great was not the very basic, over told story, but rather the style of NWR's direction, the performances of the actors and the very real time nature of the film.

The directing here is quite pedestrian and downright lazy, bringing nothing of the style of the original. The acting is decent, but again we've already seen this done better.

And by the way, this film was already remade two years ago in India.

Every director has movies they just LOVE and would want to emulate. For such a basic story, this director could have come up with any one of many basic "drug deal gone bad" stories and used his style to tell it. Unfortunately, this film takes the easy way out, trying to simply capitalize on the name of the original, without elevating it.

Review: Honestly, how much bad luck can one man have. He was definitely in the wrong profession! Anyway, I quite enjoyed this movie but the music was so annoying. All of the actors put in good performances, and the storyline was cleverly written to keep the audience in suspense. It does tend to go round and round in circles and it could have done with a bit more action, but for a British film, it was good to see something fresh without the same old faces. We have seen this storyline many times before, but the director showed us a the life of a drug dealer from a different point of view. I did expect more after watching the first half an hour, but its not a bad watch.

Round-Up: I haven't seen Richard Coyle in any other movies, but he brings a kind of intensity to the role as Frank, which worked well in the movie. Although his character has followed the bad path in life, you can't help but feeling sorry for him throughout the movie because of his bad luck. The main question that comes to mind whilst watching the movie is, Who Do You Trust, even though everyone seems to like Frank in one way or another. It also shows the dark underworld with drugs and violence which we have seen quite often in movies nowadays with the involvement of Eastern Europeans.

I recommend this movie to people who enjoy there British movies about drugs and violence and a man trying to pay of a debt. 4/10