"Pusher" for children

Rating: 4/10 (18 December 2011)

Oh how the mighty have fallen and lost their edge. After the Bleeder and Pusher movies that were so gritty and real, it is hard to believe that this is the same director. Everything about this stinks of a lazy stroll through CSI and the US culture of gloss versus grit and bravado versus reality. The story itself is multilayered with acres of scope to flesh out a gripping, dirty, yet cool masterpiece - especially with the movie "The Driver" from the 70s to build on. And with one of my favourite actors in the lead role - this should have been a cult classic. Instead it is instantly forgettable with a series of events in the last third that must have come out of a comic book as the logic and credibility of all the characters suddenly fall into a category of childhood playfighting, not the adult battlefield of ganglords. And where were the car chases - I can only assume that the budget didn't stretch to wrecking too many cars, with way too much time (in comparison) played to a predictable love triangle storyline.
I think my main criticism has to fall on Refn himself. His vision seemed to have fallen woefully short. The cool distant reprise of Ryan O'Neil from "The Driver" is a good start - but it is played so clumsily and painfully in your face as to lose its cold pathos beneath a blundering series of panning moody shots and distasteful musical warmth. The music score, the lingering shots - a total afront to creating anything gritty or remotely powerful. The dialogue was pretty decent though, with some incisive prose, and the casting of Albert Brooks as a bad guy was genius. Yet even the set pieces lacked any zest or street cred - way way too much polish Refn - and another lesson unlearned from your early movies.
Everything about this screams 15 rating for armchair mid-evening viewing - atrocious music singing the praises of our hero only making it that more irritating and comical. Dear Refn, please regain your credibility at the cost of selling your soul for you will never again regain the longevity of those earlier movies with this thin waster that has already dissolved from my eager brain wanting something to challenge it rather than kill another two hours of life.