It would have been so natural for "Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands" to pick up where the original film left off, but writer/director Refn makes the bold and brilliant decision to not so much make a sequel, as an "equal".
The connective tissue is all there; this is very much set in the same grimy, smalltime criminal underworld of Copenhagen, and retains some of the same characters such as an appearance by Zlatko Buric's drug lord Milo, but this time the spotlight is on Tonny - the sidekick played by Mads Mikkelsen in the first film.
Mikkelsen was great in "Pusher" - playing a dead-eyed thug who seemed to want to cause chaos because he had nothing better to do. If you had told me that Refn and Mikkelsen were going to put Tonny centre stage in the sequel and examine what's made the man, and what might be ahead for him, I would have said that's either brilliant or very stupid.
Luckily, these guys are at the top of their game and it comes off wonderfully. Refn resisted the impulse to replicate the propulsive man-on-a-mission structure of his first film, allowing for a slightly more relaxed pace. The engine of the plot is once again set in motion by the need of a man to earn money to pay off his drug debts but Refn expands on the glimpses we saw in the first film of the criminals personal life by introducing Tonny's father; a notorious local crime boss.
Refn is interested in how men become who they are - how the pressure from our fathers and our peers to be tough, to be violent, to be ruthless, and to make money has a devastating effect on how we grow, or fail to.
Tonny has no desires other than to have a good time, and to earn a place in his father's affections through proving himself as a criminal, but upon learning that he may have a son, there is a gradual, nagging dawning in Tonny that maybe there should be something more.
Refn offers no models of manhood other than the cut throat criminals Tonny has always been around. It makes change for Tonny difficult, and Mikkelsen etches the slow personal growth perfectly. There is no big revelatory moment, just a man looking about in moments of quiet and asking himself if this is what he wants.
The handheld, street level vision of Copenhagen is as believable and compelling as it was in the original, but in choosing to forge a new identity for Pusher, Refn opened up swathes of new terrain to explore.
The connective tissue is all there; this is very much set in the same grimy, smalltime criminal underworld of Copenhagen, and retains some of the same characters such as an appearance by Zlatko Buric's drug lord Milo, but this time the spotlight is on Tonny - the sidekick played by Mads Mikkelsen in the first film.
Mikkelsen was great in "Pusher" - playing a dead-eyed thug who seemed to want to cause chaos because he had nothing better to do. If you had told me that Refn and Mikkelsen were going to put Tonny centre stage in the sequel and examine what's made the man, and what might be ahead for him, I would have said that's either brilliant or very stupid.
Luckily, these guys are at the top of their game and it comes off wonderfully. Refn resisted the impulse to replicate the propulsive man-on-a-mission structure of his first film, allowing for a slightly more relaxed pace. The engine of the plot is once again set in motion by the need of a man to earn money to pay off his drug debts but Refn expands on the glimpses we saw in the first film of the criminals personal life by introducing Tonny's father; a notorious local crime boss.
Refn is interested in how men become who they are - how the pressure from our fathers and our peers to be tough, to be violent, to be ruthless, and to make money has a devastating effect on how we grow, or fail to.
Tonny has no desires other than to have a good time, and to earn a place in his father's affections through proving himself as a criminal, but upon learning that he may have a son, there is a gradual, nagging dawning in Tonny that maybe there should be something more.
Refn offers no models of manhood other than the cut throat criminals Tonny has always been around. It makes change for Tonny difficult, and Mikkelsen etches the slow personal growth perfectly. There is no big revelatory moment, just a man looking about in moments of quiet and asking himself if this is what he wants.
The handheld, street level vision of Copenhagen is as believable and compelling as it was in the original, but in choosing to forge a new identity for Pusher, Refn opened up swathes of new terrain to explore.