Hello again, internet: Pusher 2 & 3, Drive

Ugh, I’ve been really slacking off, I realize it’s been almost a month since my last entry. Appy polly loggy. A lot’s been going on. I’ve still been watching a lot - my viewing tally for the year is now at 104 films (yes, I keep count) - I just haven’t been committing much down on paper. Less drinking equals less Drunk Movie Time, sad to say. I will attempt to rectify that and catch up on a bunch of excellent films (and some less-excellent stuff, too) over the next few weeks. Even if it means you get a lot of short posts, I figure that’s better than the utter void.

First a little following up on my last post. I finished up Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy. For those of you who may have checked out Refn’s American breakout Drive last year, there is a strong aesthetic seam running through his films, and it fits the characters well, straddling the fence between glossy, glowing flash and a suffocating griminess. These are people running wild outside the law, underground but playing out “wealthy mobster” fantasies on various levels, from the able street hustler (Frank in Pusher) to the unsophisticated pawn (Tonny in Pusher 2) to the brash, ambitious dealer-on-the-rise (Mohammed in 2 and 3) to the aging kingpin (Milo).

For me, Milo (Zlatko Buric) is clearly the most compelling character in Pusher and Pusher 2. No matter how badly someone else has fucked something up, everybody is welcome to sample his cooking, everyone is still his “friend.” Thus, he manipulates his underlings with a babbling delivery filled with pretense, injecting stabbing sparks of tension into the narrative.

In Pusher 3, however, Refn’s focuses wholly on Milo and he must deal with his own stressful fight-for-survival. This strips away some of the evil mystery surrounding Milo that I’d built in my head from the first two films, and gives him a much more vulnerable aura. Right from the start he’s sweating out a session in an Addicts Anonymous support group, and throughout the film he’s thrust into situations where he is forced to bide his time and eat shit as a younger hoodlums write him off as “getting too old for a young man’s game.” The results of their insolence are none too pretty and make for the best, most gruesome ending of the three films.

As with Padilha’s pair of Elite Squad films (and their precursor documentary Bus 174 - about which more in an upcoming entry) here we have another instance where examining them as a whole makes for a richer experience than only considering them as individual films. Even though each Pusher film follows a different character, the pattern of the story is similar in all three: main character falls into a deal-gone-bad situation, must claw like a cat in a sack to survive, does even more bad shit. Er, that’s also the basic gist of Drive, come to think of it. That makes them feel a little stuck in neutral at times, but there are some harrowing moments that are worth the slog.

As for Drive, again, it carries thematic and expository similarities, ramping up the style and action a couple notches but filling in the remainder with Ryan Gosling sleepwalking through a character that should be much more interesting, resulting in great swaths of tedium. Albert Brooks is the clear highlight of the cast in a role that plays against expectations, one that echoes Milo's viciousness if not his manners. Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman also catch juicy little parts that have mirrors in the Pusher world. Lately, I've visited quite a few what I guess you could call "modern mobster"-type films and Drive fits in nicely with films like Steven Soderbergh's The Limey and Johnathan Glazer's Sexy Beast. I can't think of one that I'm ready to elevate to "masterpiece" status, but all are most definitely worth a look.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands (2004): 70

Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death (2005): 75

Drive (2011): 75

Thugs and Drugs All Over the World

This week I took a series of cinematic trips around the globe to examine different conflicts between drug dealers and cops. Each has its own distinct flavor, and watching them in close succession worked well in providing different insights to the aesthetic and thematic choices when dealing with a similar jumping-off point.


The Raid: Redemption (2011)
Director: Gareth Evans
I usually try to avoid hyperbole, but when I heard that this Indonesian import might be one of the best action movies since Die Hard I figured it was a gotta-see-for-myself situation. And I must say I was not disappointed. The setup is a police raid on a dilapidated apartment building that is occupied (almost?) entirely by the dregs of society, your everyday Mos Eisley of drug dealers, murderers, thieves, mother stabbers and father rapers. They are ruled over like a fiefdom by the shadowy druglord Tama, who lives in the penthouse complete with a bank of monitors where he can watch the unfolding action and encourage his minions to battle the intruding forces. The police are met with fierce resistance as they attempt to ascend up the tower, level by level, in an insane attempt to carry out the mission. The result plays out a bit like Bruce Lee's Game of Death, (or the old Kung Fu video game, if you prefer. Great, I just spent 30 minutes playing that. Okay, back to biz.) There are also smacks of Assault on Precinct 13 and Attack the Block thrown in for good measure. 



Okay, it's not Die Hard in that it's missing the smart-assed leading man. In this case were supposed to care about Rama (Iko Uwais) but it's short on character development, though it tries for a few points by showing us Rama's wife at home all preggers. We're really just here for the fist-bloodied action and monsoon of bullets. There are a few convoluted twists and turns where the "good guys" might not be exactly that, making me feel less guilty when I found myself rooting for the "bad guys." Was especially wowed by Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian), the #1 henchman, whose lack of size is more than made up for by his ferocity. The action gets into gory territory, illiciting more than a few winces and utterances of "Oh Damn!" from yours truly. I don't recall an action movie that made me do that so much since a couple scenes in Fist of Legend. Writer/director Gareth Evans has delivered a winner that sends everybody through the ringer, including the audience. A really nasty pure action kick in the cabeza. In limited theaters now, if you can find it go go go. There is already word of a sequel to which I say "yay" and a Hollywood remake to which I say "yuck."


Elite Squad (2007)
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (2010)
Director: José Padilha
Next I jetted on over to Rio and the pair of acclaimed Elite Squad movies that captured the attention of Brazil and now, justifiably, the world. There are obvious comparisons to be made to the brilliant, brilliant City of God, and there is a link in writer Bráulio Mantovani, but director José Padilha brings a less flashy, grittier vision. The ES films shine a similar sort of light on the various plights of Rio through the eyes and voice of Roberto Nascimiento (Wagner Moura), a Captain in an elite paramilitary unit Special Police Operation Batallion (abreved as BOPE). Their insignia and call to arms is "Caldera!" ("Skull!"), and they are tasked with SWAT-type missions, mostly involving cleaning up the drug trade. Nascimiento is in the position of a "gettin' too old for this shit" Brazilian version of Rama with a lot more meat to him: the please-find-yourself-a-replacement-and-get-a-desk-job-so-you-can-come-home-safe wife at home with baby on the way.The other main character is André Matias (André Ramiro), an idealistic BOPE recruit/law student. The ebb and flow of the relationship between the two men and how they handle the ever-changing landscape of crime and politics infuses the films with a varying perspective and real thrust. Corruption exists at every level and the necessary symbiosis of the major players makes for complex issue-tackling.

The first ES has more action with intense training scenes that best Full Metal Jacket - that is not hyperbole, it's truth. The second ES (The Enemy Within) is a little more fixated on politics with just a few action scenes sprinkled in. I know some people saw the second first, but if you can help it I would definitely recommend watching them in order. You'll get sucked in by the action in the first and the backstory in the second will make a lot more sense. and you'll have more emotional investment. I felt touches of a lesser Godfather as it progressed through part 2. Okay that's a bit of hyperbole, but Moura channels the best of Pacino throughout, a performance that grows on you as the character grows.


One of the big impressions I get from all 3 of these films is that there could be a Modern Warfare spinoff dealing with paramilitary forces, with enough action, corruption, and double crossing to engage a prolonged, twisted storyline. Imagine a cross between Modern Warfare and "The Wire," set in police stations, prisons and favellas of Rio. That would be pretty kick ass, no? End digression, I soon intend to go back to the beginning of what Padilha calls a sort of trilogy, his documentary Bus 174.


Pusher (1996)
Director: Nicholas Winding Refn

Additionally, I dug Pusher, which turns things around and focuses on the drug dealer side of things as a man's life descends into spiral of hell after a deal goes bad. It's the worst case scenario of empty promises, threats and violence as he ferrets into every possible corner of Copenhagen to beg, borrow, or steal enough money to pay off his debt. Kim Bodina is great as Frank, but every scene with Zlatko Buric as Milo the druglord is a tense drolling classic. Will be checking part 2 of Nicholas Winding Refn's trilogy tonight.




The Raid: Redemption: 87 purely action points. 
Elite Squad: 79 & 83 individually, 88 as a whole. I know that makes little sense, but I'm making a point. The sum is better than the individual parts.
Pusher: 78