Why the low IMDB rating?

Same here, I also gave it a 9 and also love all 3.

No hate here mate. :)
I think 6.5 - 7.0 is very respectable and your criteque/review very fair,
I'm sure there's plenty out there but in all the Danish films I've seen
to date I've yet to see a bad one, also embarrassingly I've never seen
Bad Lieutenant, I should check that out.

Cheers.

I agree with this very much (though I like the challenge of less than sympathetic protagonists personally and respect movies that break for the safe devices of getting us on the side of the main character). I also like endings that leave you wondering. I think the rating is very respectable especially for a love/hate film like this where I think a lot of people will give reactively low ratings.

I guess Americans are used to getting a clear ending in the gangster movies - Michael steps in charge of the family business, Tony Montana gets killed, Henry and the rest of the goodfellas convicted. Probably this could be partly the reason.
However, the final of Pusher is not abrupt at all - you can expect that this would eventually happen - Vic leaves Frank for good. During the whole movie he has been refusing to let her get close to him, he has been totally cold, he has been treating her with a minimum respect, insulting her by calling her a whore etc. So the final wasn't abrupt or confusing or anything like this - it was matter of time. Because, you know, a movie it's not all about what you see, but what it says - so as the sequences roll one after another, a whole moral story is unfold and it actually came to an end at exactly the right time.
Another reason, I suppose, is that Americans are used to observing a stylized gangsters - the expensive suits, the expensive cribs, the expensive clubs. However in Europe the gangster movies are much more realistic - the characters are dressed in tracksuits, they wear cheap and fake jewellery and hang out in beer-stinking bars.

Stupidest comment i've read on IMDB to date.

I agree with you. I am American and find it very very hard to find anyone to watch movies with if they are subtitled. It's a shame as there are so many great films/series outside of our borders and I watch quite a lot of them. Most of the time when I suggest one they ask if there is an English dubbed version. The same people think I'm crazy when I say that dubbed movies are distracting. Dubbed movies come across as hoakey to me, they feel so fake. Even if a movie is in a different language I have to have the volume at a high enough level so you can hear everything, even if you don't understand what they are saying just hearing the voice inflection is important as it helps you "feel" the dialog. It makes such a big difference to hear the actual actor on screen speaking, regardless of you being able to understand them. You can watch a dubbed movie and someone can come across as a bad actor but you can watch the same movie subtitled and the actor will come across as excellent.

A vast majority of the time non-english movies are underrated IMDB. My guess is that someone hears what a great movie so and so is and then they try watching it and can't get into it for the reason you stated. My rule of thumb is to give non-english movies a handicap and add 1.5-2 stars to the IMDB rating, that roughly adds up to make it evenly rated to what I would consider an "equivalently" good english speaking movie. That's all subjective but it works for me


-- Den som vinkar till den blinde, han gör fåfängt arbete.

If 8 is a masterpiece then what the hell is a 9 or a 10? I'm curious here.

I'm surprised by how high the score is. This film was good, but nothing special. We've seen this story and style a million times before. It's the same style as "Romper Stomper" (which came out 4 years earlier) with many of the same themes. I honestly don't understand why this film has so much love compared to so many of it's equally good peers. It deserves between 6.5 - 7.0. If it was made in the 80's I'd understand, but I honestly think it may be over-rated by people who rarely watch foreign language films and are surprised they found one they liked. As it has violence and a very fast pace.

I'm surprised by how high the score is. This film was good, but nothing special. We've seen this story and style a million times before. It's the same style as "Romper Stomper" (which came out 4 years earlier) with many of the same themes. I honestly don't understand why this film has so much love compared to so many of it's equally good peers. It deserves between 6.5 - 7.0. If it was made in the 80's I'd understand, but I honestly think it may be over-rated by people who rarely watch foreign language films and are surprised they found one they liked. As it has violence and a very fast pace.