Pusher will be familiar to foreign film aficionados as the first part of a trilogy of drug dealers made by Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive) over a period of ten years (1996-2005). Each film starred a different actor with the leads of the last two films playing supporting roles in the first. The good news is that the Pusher remake, set in the UK and in gang-speak English, uses the original film as a scene-by-scene template. There’s no bad news either.

A low life drug dealer gets in debt over his head when he’s forced to dump a shitton of cocaine after a deal becomes the object of a police sting. Only the mobster that fronted him the coke doesn’t see it that way. Refn exec produces, Luis Prieto directs and actor Zlatko Buric reprises his role as Milo.

If you’re familiar with the original film you’ll find comfort in the effortless way the Pusher hits all the right buttons. If you’ve come to the film unaware of the original a tight narrative populated by strippers, druggies, curb dwelling criminal lowlifes and other miscreants of society will blow you away.

- Michael Bergeron