YOU DON’T HAVE A CHANCE. SEIZE IT!

A Copenhagen drug dealer (Kim Bodnia) is desperately trying to come up with money to pay off a debt that keeps getting bigger.

The director’s feature debut became a Danish genre classic, not least because there hadn’t been anything like it before in Denmark. In some of their earliest roles, Bodnia and Mads Mikkelsen stand out as a couple of lowlifes whose friendship ends with a heroin deal gone wrong.

The subsequent hunt in Copenhagen’s underworld is portrayed with natural light and a jittery handheld camera; a tad dated now, perhaps, but still effective.

1996-Denmark. 105 min. Color. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Screenplay: Jens Dahl, Nicolas Winding Refn. Cast: Kim Bodnia (Frank), Zlatko Buric (Milo), Laura Drasbaek (Vic), Slavko Labovic, Mads Mikkelsen, Vanja Bajicic, Peter Andersson, Thomas Bo Larsen. 

Trivia: Winding Refn appears as a young junkie. Followed by two sequels, starting with Pusher II (2004). Remade in India in 2010 and in Britain as Pusher (2012).