And so, his plans quickly go to ruins and he ends up owing an insane amount of cash to a merciless gang headed by the owner of a pastry shop with diabetes. It's not only his life that is at stake - it his the life of his little daughter and her mother too. Soon enough he finds himself alone in a search for whoever stole the cocaine and trying to get some money together in order to save his life, with his dream of escaping to Australia fast getting out of his hands.
Director Jean Luc Herbulot throws us, the viewers, are thrown without much embellishment in the frantic pace of the storyline, the rush of the chase. Everything about the film is frantic, from the fast paced and half improvised dialogue to the snappy and creative editing. Dealer also feels even more gritty and real due to the guerrilla filmmaking style employed and shaky cam-work that adds an inevitable bite - the whole films was shot in twelve day and it was completed with less than 200,000 euro with most of the money spent in post production. As well as that, its striking genuineness can be identified in the way in which the story was essentially inspired by real life experiences of its star and producer Dan Bronchinson.
Yet, it is a work of cinema. The structure and overall rhythm reminds us of Pusher by Nicolas Winding Refn, the saturation of the colours in the photography recalls B-movies of all, while elements such as the snappy voice over have a Guy Ritchie vibe about them. There is no doubt about it, Dealer is exciting from start to finish. Its mess is reflective of the society which it represents, and which the narrative comes from. At the same time, it is far from pleasant in the conventional and industruialised sense. The chaos can a time feel like a direct assault on the viewer as well as the maddening portrayal of the ordeal in which our leading antihero finds himself. On top of that, the violence - and a particularly memorable halal style murder sequence - is certainly not for the squeamish.
