An incredible follow up to Pusher 1 featuring one of my favorite actors as the main protagonist Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen)!

The chickens have come home to roost and it's time for Tonny to decide whether to shit or get off the pot! But when you're born and bred in a shit storm it's nearly impossible to navigate your way beyond its clutches before it sucks you back into its vortex of pain all over again!

Mads Mikkelsen's performance of this gutless, spineless, poor excuse for a human being was so spot on even I despised this character! Mads genuine portrayal of a low life kept my sympathies in check even when we became privy to some of the reasons why he's the boil on the ass of society!

I highly recommend watching the Pusher Trilogy back to back to enhance your viewing experience!

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.

RESPECT

Mads Mikkelsen is in every scene.
Enough said.

The "Pusher" movies are like "Goodfellas" in that you can't quite tell you're watching a tragedy or a comedy. The characters are in hot water due to their self-destructive behavior, and the audience knows that they'll mess things up further. This creates an amusing dramatic irony as the viewer watches the characters stumble from one blunder to the next. The confounding nature of the characters' depressing situations serves as another source of comedy. It's a grim "Trainspotting" brand of humor but humor nonetheless. Don't miss this movie if you're a fan of Madds Mikkelsen, it's one of his best performances to date.

I heard about the original on a podcast and then when “Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands” appeared on my streaming service, I noticed that Mads Mikkelsen was playing the main character and since I like his work, I figured it was time to give this a watch. OK, I’m all done and I gotta say, I was not into this at all. Mads’ character is a total fuck-up and nothing has changed much by the end of the movie. I just did not wanna be hangin’ out in this world anymore after the first 20 minutes. This is a 3 outta 10.

Pusher II is an affecting film, but it lacks the laser focus that made its predecessor special. Gone is the potent nihilism that sprang from the shaky camera and endless shithole locations. Instead we get a performance from Mads Mikkelsen that - while sublime - is at the service of a hollywood-ized character arc. He's humanized a little . . . and then humanized some more. It rings completely false when compared to the modus operandi of the first film - a comparison that is impossible not to make thanks to the production's painstaking efforts to precisely replicate the look and feel of the original.

I believe Refn has publicly admitted that he made the Pusher sequels because he needed the paycheck(s). He coulda done worse.

Tonni aus Teil 1 ist hier der „Held“ der Geschichte und auch genauso ein dummer Asi-Loser, was alle anderen handelnden Figuren ihm auch ständig unter die Nase reiben. Daraus entstehen fast zwangsläufig Situationen, bei denen man sich kopfschüttelnd abwendet. Mads Mikkelsen, von dem man später ganz andere Rollen gewohnt war, spielt dies wieder  mal 1A. Und Refn haut in der 2. Hälfte des Films die Neonbeleuchtung an, fast um zu zeigen, wo in seinen späteren Filmen die Reise hingeht, auch wenn das hier immer noch die raue Realität widerspiegelt und nicht die gelackte Stilistik.

The beauty in this film comes from some subtle but phenomenal preformances and a focus on the gritty crime in the most unglamorous manner. It all felt very personal and never steps away from it. While the first was a roller coaster of anxiety from beginning to end, this one took it's time and didn't try to do any action and crazy movement. It made you understand the characters up to every point, including just how pathetic and messed up the protagonist is. But by the end he earns just what his overblown back of the head tattoo says, Respect.

I liked it even more than the first Pusher due to the focus on Mads Mikkelsen. Though one of my favorite character actors, Mikkelsen can come often across as cold or aloof in many roles, but not so in Pusher II where he plays Tonny as a man whose naked need for validation, and struggle to find his place in a world that on the one hand moved on without him and on the other stayed the same in all the worst ways, are plainly etched in that severe Danish face of his.

Hannibal has daddy issues.

Back to square one. A director with nothing to lose. A pedagogy of infantilised scumbaggery. A baby with no name. A neon gangster wedding. A see through toilet cubicle. A bride with a nosebleed. A stripper with a candle. A child by the side of every criminal. A line of cocaine on every coffee table. Every dipshit will have their nightmare. Some will last a day, some will last forever.

And I thought the first film was hopeless.

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