Pusher (and a bit of Drive)

I’m still not sure why I didn’t write a piece about it but I thought Drive was one of the best movies…well…I guess I’ve ever seen.  I mean it’s not perfect and has its share of problems but goddamn does it have style and balls.  From the hot pink cursive credits to the gory skull crushing, I loved it all.  The track over the opening credits is particularly awesome:

As a result Nicolas Winding Refn has instantly become one of my new favorite directors.  He seems to be a bit peculiar though, which is always welcome in artists of any kind.  When Ryan Gosling recalled his first encounter with Refn in an interview he said that they drove around L.A. listening to pop music when suddenly Refn started crying and then singing at the top of his lungs while pounding his fists on his knees and exclaimed that this is what the movie is going to be, a guy driving around at night listening to pop music.  Gosling has also described Drive as, “a violent John Hughes movie fairy tale”.  I’m not sure about the latter (full disclosure: I’m a huge John Hughes fan that has a titanic sized place in my heart for his films…well most of his films anyway, man the end of his career really sucked didn’t it?) but the former is a good start of a description of the picture.

I saw this thing twice in theaters (a buddy of mine saw it three times) and I can’t remember the last time I did that (I’m pretty sure this has happened in the last ten years but I’m having trouble thinking of what movie it was).  Admittedly I thought it was good but not great the first time but the second time it blew me away.  I could focus on the parts I really liked and not be bothered so much with the parts that I didn’t.  You guys gotta see it, it’s badass as shit and incredibly well made.

So after all of that I had to go back and check out his acclaimed debut, Pusher.  It’s about a drug dealer, Frank (Kim Bodnia (Bleeder)), that gets in deep with his supplier, Milo (Zlatko Buric (2012)), for a ton of cash.  He has only a couple of days to get it or Milo’s thug, Radovan, will take his knee caps.  That’s quite a pickle if you ask me.

So it’s a basic premise that we’ve seen before but this one comes off a bit different.  Frank’s situation is bad from the start because he already owes some money to Milo even before he blows the big score that puts him eyebrows deep in debt.  So you have to assume that Milo is somewhat upset with him from the get go even though he doesn’t show it.  I mean what crime boss is going to take lightly someone not paying him his money?  I guess you would see that in a mob-boss-with-a-heart-of-gold type movie (most likely directed by Brett Ratner), but this isn’t one of them.

At every turn Frank can’t catch a break.  He tries to collect some money from people that owe him, steal other’s drugs, rob people at gunpoint, etc.  None of it goes his way.  He needs to come up with so much money that it’s hopeless.  But the way Frank goes about all of this is strange and interesting.  He doesn’t seem to be that concerned with the situation he’s in.  He takes his time trying to gather the money and continues to snort heroine and hang out with his girlfriend that he treats like shit.  I didn’t know what to make of his nonchalant attitude.  I thought either he doesn’t care what happens to him or he has an ace up his sleeve.  Well I turned out to be wrong on both accounts.  Frank doesn’t want anything to happen to him but at the same time he can’t bring himself to move quickly to get the money.  He’s his own worst enemy.

The ending was sudden and not what I expected.  I won’t give it away but I would have a totally different idea about what happened if sequels to this picture weren’t made.  But then again I haven’t seen the sequels yet so it’s still up in the air for me.

There are a lot of similarities between this and Drive.  Both involve the main character in a situation that spirals totally out of control making you doubt that he can get out of it, there’s not a terrible amount of action but when there is it’s pretty grisly, the soundtracks are cool and fitting and both have a couple of scenes that are strange but fascinating and even touching.  In Drive there’s the part where Gosling puts on a mask and peeks in on Ron Perlman at his pizza parlor laughing very hard in slow motion.  In Pusher Frank and Radovan are on their way to try and collect some money after the blown score and they talk about how Radovan doesn’t really like what he does and that he wants to open a restaurant ‘cause he makes a killer shish kabob.  They’re laughing and having a good talk even though one minute earlier Radovan tells Frank that one time he had to take out a guy’s knee caps with a knife because he didn’t pay.

Refn knows what the fuck he’s doing and this is a real strong debut for any director.  On the extras there was a documentary called Gambler that followed him around while he was trying to get financing for Pusher 2 and 3.  He says in it that it’s (and I forget the exact word that he used) a curse to have a hit for your first film because everyone sees everything else you do after that as inferior.  The doc was good by the way and very interesting because it shows the business and politics behind trying to get a film financed and made.  Refn went bankrupt after Fear X (in the doc he calls it his best film) so he needed to attract investors to get Pusher 2 off the ground.  But the Pusher 2 money would only pay his debts so he needed to make Pusher 3 to actually get some income.  It’s complicated because Refn wants to make a film that satisfies him creatively but at the same time he also needs to make something that will please his investors so they keep giving him money to make movies.  The whole process looks pretty fucked up.

The thing about both Pusher and Drive is that they’re arty but not necessarily farty.  They have attitude and conviction that walks the walk and talks the talk.  They’re so well put together that the pretentiousness melts away to reveal an endoskeleton made of masterful cinematography, great story telling and pure psychotic aggression.  I look forward to whatever Refn does in the future ‘cause he dishes out some damn good entertainment.