Popular reviews

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  Review by David Sims ★★★½ 6

  you know you're in trouble when your best friend is called "Kurt the Cunt"

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  Review by 24framesofnick ★★★★★ 4

  Seriously one of my favorite fucking movies ever made

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  Review by DallasFrance ★★★★½ 2

  This might be one of the twenty most depressing films I’ve ever seen. Mads Mikkelsen’s character Tonny is a 100% Grade A loser, but there is so much cruelty bombarding him from every angle... it’s almost impossible not to feel for him on some level. Mikkelsen’s amazing performance also goes a long way towards humanizing Tonny, and the frenetic, in-Mads-face cinematography makes every gut punch land that much harder. Did I mention he’s really stupid? Talk about a stacked deck. 

  Nicolas Winding Refn did a great job of getting in my head. Am I on some level rooting for an awful person because every person in his life treats him with such disdain and disrespect? There’s a 1.5% chance I just watched a happy ending, but I think I’m being overly optimistic.

  I hope there’s some immorality quadratic formula that can help me figure this out, cause this film kinda spun me out.

  
  Nicolas Winding Refn Ranked

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  Review by 𝚮𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖊𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖊 ❤️‍🔥 ★★★½ 12

  Well congratulations Mads, this time I think you finally KILLED ME

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  Review by 13_MoMo_13 ★★★★ 2

  Mads Mikkelsen is in every scene.
  Enough said.

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  Review by Slig001 ★★★★ 1

  Nicholas Winding Refn's follow up to the excellent Pusher focuses on a side character from the first film. It exists in the same space, but it goes off on a tangent rather than being a direct follow up. The film takes place in Denmark's criminal underworld - the gritty guerilla style cinematography, born out of the film's obvious low budget, serves the narrative in that it puts the audience right down in the dirty underbelly with the various low lives that inhabit it. Much of the film's success rests on the shoulders of the lead actor. It's an amazing perormance from Mads Mikkelsen, who somehow manages to give a real human element to his portrayal as the unthinking loser at…

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  Review by cblaze ★★★★½

  Tonny has a tattoo on the back of his head that says RESPECT. Unfortunately, Tonny is the kind of man who asks for it - instead of forcing people to respect him. In the world of crime, in which he dwells, this isn't the best method of earning respect. Is Tonny actually a loser, or is he playing by other's unfair rules?

  I love how ambiguous they made this film. It takes a character that you're not exactly sure you should like (Tonny), and focuses in on him so intimately that you just have to feel something about him and the situations he finds himself in. It took me all the way to the end until that floodgate of tension…

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★ 6

  mads mikkelsen playing with nunchucks while watching porn... not sure i require anything else from a film. high-cringe character study of perhaps the stupidest man in human history, a feature-length rendition of this gif. fascinating how these early NWR works are packed with anxiety about immature men dealing with the rapid onset of fatherhood -- an experience that his later protagonists don't deal with, as they're either impotent sigma males or domineering sociopathic women, and children only exist as ideals to be protected or as invisible victims of depravity; the domestic sphere vanishes entirely.

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  Review by Sethsreviews ★★★★½ 2

  A lot more emotionally driven and grounded than the first. This is a harsh character study with a focus on realism, and with Mads in pretty much every scene, I knew this would be for me. This trilogy has been unexpectedly very good so far, looking forward to finishing it off.

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 12

  Action!: Nicolas Winding's Mood and Pace Through The Neon, Gritty Streets

  Probably one of the best films to be made out of necessity. From what I read online, apparently this film was never intended and it got only made because Refn’s last film prior to this one, Fear X was such a box-office failure that it led his production company into bankruptcy, and he kinda made this sequel and the next as a way of recouping the money. At least, that’s what I believe I read.

  Either way, as for the film itself, this is definitely a vast improvement. While it feels a little more cinematic, the film still has this rawness that lends it a great sense of authenticity…

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★ 1

  Noir-November Challenge! Movie #25

  2nd film of Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher Trilogy!

  Nordic Neo Noir piece starring one of my favorite actors Mads Mikkelsen! Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Copenhagen underworld cuz he gets no respect! Ironically he has the word tattooed on the back of his baldhead which tells you just how desperate he is to attain it! He's the quintessential posterboy for losers so he's basically got a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting it!

  Refn fleshes out the character Tonny in ways you almost sympathize with him but Refn smacks you in the face with a glaring look at the monster lying just below the surface! And when it rears its ugly…

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  Review by Dirk Diggler ★★★★★ 4

  An emotional gut-punch. Such a powerful character study and heavily stylized slice of gritty social realism. Mads Mikkelsen's performance is beyond words, one for the ages. Its just perfect when the camera lingers on his face, when he deals with inner conflicts. You feel a sort of catharsis by the end. I think this beats Drive as my favorite Refn film, and I fucking love Drive.