BLEEDER [1999]

Director Nicolas Winding Refn reunintes 4 of his Pusher cast members (technically 5) for the bleakly unsettling drama Bleeder.
Instead of being as frantic and loud as Pusher, this film is a little more subtle and more thoughtful but just as starkly realistic and disturbingly violent.  At times it made me think that this is what you might get had Kevin Smith's Clerks been made in Denmark by Martin Scorsese.  Kim Bodnia is effectively frightening as he keeps you on edge whenever he's on screen, while Mads Mikkelsen is a joy to watch as a quiet movie nerd who has no idea how to interact with people outside of his video store comfort zone.  In the end it's pretty much Refn on auto-pilot but still a refreshing change from most thriller/dramas you'll see these days.

3 Last Exits To Brooklyn out of 5

PUSHER [1996]

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's debut, Pusher is a tough-skinned glimpse into the world of a middle-man lowlife drug dealer and the hole he digs deeper & deeper for himself over a week.  

The first part of a trilogy is a tense thriller shot like a documentary that seethes with unsettling realism and somehow escapes all the usual trappings of the standard Hollywood crime drama.  Kim Bodnia does an excellent job as the criminal protagonist that you can't help but root for no matter how low he is in his desperate yet idiotic decisions.  A tale with no remorse, this is a film that is just a taste of what's to come in Refn's career.  

4 pussy fingers out of 5