Reviews

I frequently visit the IMDb pages of movies I like. I've noticed that Pusher 3 normally oscillates between a 6,6 and 6,9 user rating (very rarely goes over 7). I personally gave it a 10.

I have derived a conclusion. There is a wide gap between people who like this movie (in my opinion the best of the trilogy) and people who hate it.

And I understand that the love-hate dichotomy can be explained by a simple fact: this movie is too violent. Picture two Yugoslav gangsters in the back of a restaurant, tying a rival to a chair and beginning the questioning with a plastic bag at hand. Then picture the same Yugoslavs (actually a Croat and a Montenegrin) at midnight in a dark basement looking where to plug an electric saw... This is not the typical popcorn movie of a Sunday afternoon.

This is how I explain the relatively low rating: there are some who are rating this very high (8,9,10) while some others have left the theatre with an unsavoury taste and are voting accordingly.

I liked Pusher 3 because of what the director recreated on the screen. The entire movie is dark in tone. After seeing Milo and his accomplice methodically dispose of two bodies, I felt like I needed to go outside and feel the fresh air, or listen to the current of a flowing river carrying crystalline water, the shades and aroma of green pines in the background.

Pusher 3 is a depiction of hell on earth. The underground hell in flames where torture is inflicted by demons doesn't exist: hell is the back of a restaurant, hell is (maybe) the guy who sits next to you in a AA meeting.

The movie left me with a bitter taste -and not just because of the violence. Like someone else has commented on this board, there are many unresolved issues (like the warning of the Police to Milo in case Kong of Copenhaguen went missing, or the reaction of Luan upon noticing that his associate Rexho is missing).

Paradoxically I think that a proportion of the viewers are still sympathetic to Milo (despite killing at least three persons in the movie and committing a number of other crimes). His defendants will argue that he was under a lot of pressure: from Luan, from Rexho, from her own daughter... The same defendants might go as far as saying that he protected a Polish girl who had been abducted and brought clandestinely into Denmark.

On the other hand the prosecutors will cite Milo's continued abuse of drugs, despite his commitments to end it and his visits to AA (or NA). Every time Milo takes drugs there is a before and an after eventually turning into his own Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To the prosecutors, Milo is a ruthless monster, despite his caring for his daughter and his best intentions to please her.

The one thing on which defendants and prosecutors may agree is that Milo is at a crossroads. His influence is waning and his Serbian gang is coming into direct collision with newcomers from also the Balkans (Albanians) and from the Maghreb. His own daughter wants a piece of his turf (if not all of it).

Bronson is not a film I would have watched (or a film I would have been interested in) was it not for the director: Nicolas Winding Refn.

This Danish réalisateur has done some previous work that I enjoyed, like the three Pusher films and, to a lesser degree, Bleeder. In fact, I think the producers couldn't have chosen a better man to direct this project, for Winding Refn has that ability to create films whose atmosphere is dark, somber and bitter. I may also add that Refn creates tense and, at times, 'enraging' atmospheres (like he did in Bleeder).

'Pusher 3' had already proved Winding Refn's ability to recreate hell on earth -and Bronson is not the exception.

I think part of the success of Bronson is its use of music. Refn has amalgamated a number of acts from such disparate styles as punk, classical and opera. In fact, I can affirm that Bronson would have been a totally different movie had other music been used, or had no music at all been used.

Could it be that a resource like music has been over-exploited in this film? (One can listen to 'Digital versicolor' kicking-in here and there in the movie). (And I don't remember Pusher been so dependant on music). What I concede to the director is his ability to also exploit intervals of silence (like when Bronson/Peterson is in the theatre in front of his audience or when he is sitting in the Luton brothel sipping a drink).

The film has a very powerful opening scene (a fighting scene) and the great use of music, as well as the contrasting colors like red and black, make this a scene very hard to forget. In fact, I think many people, years down the road, if anything, will mostly remember this scene while evoking Bronson.

But most of the momentum of the opening scene is lost in the following minutes. First we see a series of flashbacks revealing Bronson/Peterson's childhood, scenes that made me wonder whether I was in front of another 'Amélie Poulain' (in reference to the French film of the same name). At some point I even wondered whether the main character was just silly (or had mental problems).

At the time of watching this movie I ignored the existence of a real Bronson/Peterson (of Welsh descent according to Wikipedia) who to this day is still locked up in a British prison. This extra information that I gathered (AFTER watching the movie) helped explain, in part, the weird acting of Tom Hardy.

I gave this film a rating of 6. Although I still think Mr. Winding Refn was the right director for the job, I think he could have done much better, given his previous credentials. The hell he creates in Bronson is fairly obvious (a prison) while in Pusher 3, to cite another reviewer who has written elsewhere on IMDb, Refn created "an almost unbearable atmosphere, making the capital of Denmark look like hell on earth".

I bought this movie immediately as it appeared on DVD. Since very few Danish cinema is translated (or subtitled) I felt my $14 would be a good investment.

Why did I buy a new DVD release from an unknown Danish réalisateur? First, because most of the Danish thrillers I own (Pusher, Frygtelig lykkelig, Kærlighed på film, Bleeder...) have really impressed me, and I am satisfied with those purchases. Second, because dozens of Danish movies (or Danish TV series) are for obvious reasons (the language) inaccessible to non-Danes (though they've been producing first class television like Lars Von Trier's 'Riget' or Niels Arden Oplev's 'Rejseholdet').

However Tour de Force is a disappointment. Although the film starts with very innovative camera work (the opening sequences reminded me of Sin City's cinematic atmosphere) halfway down the movie we have very mediocre fighting and shooting scenes where much more effort was needed from the réalisateurs.

The few IMDb users who have rated this movie have been extremely generous. At the time of writing, this film by Kim Sønderholm has a rating of 9,5 (I gave it a six).

One can't avoid comparing Tour de Force with other Danish products like 'Pusher' and Sønderholm film pales in comparison. Both movies have a character named 'Frank', and much like Bodnia in the first Pusher instalment, our Tour de Force Frank is something of a regular guy who has to obey orders from people much higher in the crime ladder, whether they are called 'Milo' or 'Holger'.

But Sønderholm's nemesis (the so called 'Holger') is more of a Playboy than a gangster. We first meet Holger while escorted into a meeting room by black leather bodyguards. Later on we see this Holger in sleeveless t-shirts, this time escorted by ladies and conducting all business via a cellphone.

Lastly a word about the role of Slavko Labovic. An actor of Yugoslav descent, he has been called to play though underworld guys in films like the Pusher. I expected to see more of him in this movie, though his character is merely incidental, much like the short-lived roles he played in films like 'Den Gode Stromer'. (On the other hand, one cannot conceive Pusher 3 without Labovic, where he also was a secondary actor).