I frequently visit the IMDb pages of movies I like. I've noticed that Pusher 3 normally oscillates between a 6,6 and 6,9 user rating (very rarely goes over 7). I personally gave it a 10.
I have derived a conclusion. There is a wide gap between people who like this movie (in my opinion the best of the trilogy) and people who hate it.
And I understand that the love-hate dichotomy can be explained by a simple fact: this movie is too violent. Picture two Yugoslav gangsters in the back of a restaurant, tying a rival to a chair and beginning the questioning with a plastic bag at hand. Then picture the same Yugoslavs (actually a Croat and a Montenegrin) at midnight in a dark basement looking where to plug an electric saw... This is not the typical popcorn movie of a Sunday afternoon.
This is how I explain the relatively low rating: there are some who are rating this very high (8,9,10) while some others have left the theatre with an unsavoury taste and are voting accordingly.
I liked Pusher 3 because of what the director recreated on the screen. The entire movie is dark in tone. After seeing Milo and his accomplice methodically dispose of two bodies, I felt like I needed to go outside and feel the fresh air, or listen to the current of a flowing river carrying crystalline water, the shades and aroma of green pines in the background.
Pusher 3 is a depiction of hell on earth. The underground hell in flames where torture is inflicted by demons doesn't exist: hell is the back of a restaurant, hell is (maybe) the guy who sits next to you in a AA meeting.
The movie left me with a bitter taste -and not just because of the violence. Like someone else has commented on this board, there are many unresolved issues (like the warning of the Police to Milo in case Kong of Copenhaguen went missing, or the reaction of Luan upon noticing that his associate Rexho is missing).
Paradoxically I think that a proportion of the viewers are still sympathetic to Milo (despite killing at least three persons in the movie and committing a number of other crimes). His defendants will argue that he was under a lot of pressure: from Luan, from Rexho, from her own daughter... The same defendants might go as far as saying that he protected a Polish girl who had been abducted and brought clandestinely into Denmark.
On the other hand the prosecutors will cite Milo's continued abuse of drugs, despite his commitments to end it and his visits to AA (or NA). Every time Milo takes drugs there is a before and an after eventually turning into his own Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To the prosecutors, Milo is a ruthless monster, despite his caring for his daughter and his best intentions to please her.
The one thing on which defendants and prosecutors may agree is that Milo is at a crossroads. His influence is waning and his Serbian gang is coming into direct collision with newcomers from also the Balkans (Albanians) and from the Maghreb. His own daughter wants a piece of his turf (if not all of it).
I have derived a conclusion. There is a wide gap between people who like this movie (in my opinion the best of the trilogy) and people who hate it.
And I understand that the love-hate dichotomy can be explained by a simple fact: this movie is too violent. Picture two Yugoslav gangsters in the back of a restaurant, tying a rival to a chair and beginning the questioning with a plastic bag at hand. Then picture the same Yugoslavs (actually a Croat and a Montenegrin) at midnight in a dark basement looking where to plug an electric saw... This is not the typical popcorn movie of a Sunday afternoon.
This is how I explain the relatively low rating: there are some who are rating this very high (8,9,10) while some others have left the theatre with an unsavoury taste and are voting accordingly.
I liked Pusher 3 because of what the director recreated on the screen. The entire movie is dark in tone. After seeing Milo and his accomplice methodically dispose of two bodies, I felt like I needed to go outside and feel the fresh air, or listen to the current of a flowing river carrying crystalline water, the shades and aroma of green pines in the background.
Pusher 3 is a depiction of hell on earth. The underground hell in flames where torture is inflicted by demons doesn't exist: hell is the back of a restaurant, hell is (maybe) the guy who sits next to you in a AA meeting.
The movie left me with a bitter taste -and not just because of the violence. Like someone else has commented on this board, there are many unresolved issues (like the warning of the Police to Milo in case Kong of Copenhaguen went missing, or the reaction of Luan upon noticing that his associate Rexho is missing).
Paradoxically I think that a proportion of the viewers are still sympathetic to Milo (despite killing at least three persons in the movie and committing a number of other crimes). His defendants will argue that he was under a lot of pressure: from Luan, from Rexho, from her own daughter... The same defendants might go as far as saying that he protected a Polish girl who had been abducted and brought clandestinely into Denmark.
On the other hand the prosecutors will cite Milo's continued abuse of drugs, despite his commitments to end it and his visits to AA (or NA). Every time Milo takes drugs there is a before and an after eventually turning into his own Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To the prosecutors, Milo is a ruthless monster, despite his caring for his daughter and his best intentions to please her.
The one thing on which defendants and prosecutors may agree is that Milo is at a crossroads. His influence is waning and his Serbian gang is coming into direct collision with newcomers from also the Balkans (Albanians) and from the Maghreb. His own daughter wants a piece of his turf (if not all of it).