Pusher is the first in a Danish trilogy of films directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, which are soon to be brought back to big screen in limited release by Magnolia films. It's not a trilogy in the Western sense, in which a single storyline is carried over three films – nor is a thematic trilogy, as we sometimes see with Eastern cinema. In this case, it's more of a trilogy of characters. Two minor characters from the first film are each a feature character in the two sequels.

Pusher, the first film, spotlights Frank (Kim Bodnia). Frank is, as the title suggests, a drug dealer, strictly the small-potatoes street thug type – and Pusher follows him through one week of his life. It is not, as you might imagine, the very best week of Frank's life. In movies, they never are.

The basic plot to Pusher is neither surprising nor innovative: Frank makes a deal, the deal goes bad, bad deals mean complications, bad things happen. What is surprising is the way in which the subject matter is presented. Drug dealers in films – Hollywood films particularly – are usually, if not glorified, at least glamorized. Big screen dealers drive swish cars, live the high life, date glamorous women, and, should they fall, go down in a blaze of glory. Not so in Pusher.

What is exciting about Pusher is how ordinary it is. Frank is a boyish bastard who dresses like a schlub, drives an ordinary car, has a dysfunctional romantic relationship and spends most of the time he's not working hanging out with his friend Tonny (played by Mads Mikkelsen, who is taking over the old Orson Welles role of Le Chiffre in the new Bond film) with whom he drinks, rents videos, goes to the drug store, liberally samples his wares and generally talking a lot of trash about sex and women. In fact, they spend so much time talking trash about sex and women that one gets the impression that they don't have much sex at all. Which isn't surprising; with the amount of drugs they consume, it is doubtful they could manage in the bedroom if they tried.

Frank lives a blue collar lifestyle. He argues with his girlfriend about the dog and basic necessities. He helps his supplier move furniture, he and his colleagues talk about their crap jobs. He gets recipes for pastries. He's a bad guy – but the sort of bad guy you might actually know, or know of. He is a character rather than a caricature, and he's very real. The characters around him are real. Their life is real.

It is Realism, rather than action, that is the heart of Pusher. The banal dialogue, natural lighting, character complexities and docu-style camera angles (always near, but not always exactly where the action is) give the viewer the impression they are watching actual events rather than scripted entertainment; even the violence in the film manages to be genuine & brutal without becoming gratuitous. It's astonishing believable (so much so that if I chanced to see Kim Bodnia on the street, my first impulse would not be to ask for his autograph, but to avoid eye contact, and find myself a safer street to travel).

The downside of being so desperately rooted in realism is that Pusher, although beautifully realized and wonderfully acted, is not particularly entertaining. Frank, although a bad guy, fails to be a Bad Guy; he's not hapless enough to feel sorry for, vile enough to despise, or witty enough to secretly admire. This means that although one might obtain some visceral, voyeuristic pleasure in watching these events unfold, there's not enough of an emotional connection with Frank (or any of the secondary or tertiary characters) for it to really matter how it all ends. Essentially, it's a character study about a very average character. Interesting, but not earthshattering.

I'll be taking a look at Pushers II & III - which were made several years following the release of Pusher in the near future, and rather expect I'll be an expert on why not to be a drug dealer before I'm through the whole trilogy.