Capsule Film Review: Headhunters (Hodejegerne, 2011)

Jo Nesbø, Norwegian author of bestselling crime novels, had more luck with screen adaptations of his work in his native country than with screen adaptations in Hollywood. 2011 Headhunters, directed by Morten Tyldum, features Aksel Hennie as Roger Brown, headhunter for Norwegian top firms whose salary, however, isn't enough to maintain luxurious lifestyle, glamorous wife Diane (played by Sinnøve Macody Lund) and mistress Lotte (played by Julie Ølgaard). In order to supplement the income, he runs a parallel career of art thief whose main targets are his dayjob clients. One of them is Class Greve (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Dutch businessman who happens to own a valuable Rubens painting. Brown's plan to steal it gets complicated when after turns out that Greve is having an affair with Diane, and Brown's own life is endangered. Although the script by Lars Umerstad and Ulf Ryberg, at first, seems suitable for low budget TV film, Tyldum shows great skill as a director, almost effortlessly mixing different style and themes and Headhunters contains good and entertaining mix of social satire, serious thriller and Tarantinoesque black comedy. The main asset of the film is Hennie, an actor whose physical look resembles Steve Buscemi and who is deliberately made to look small compared to his tall wife and alpha male played by Coster-Waldau in a very effective villanious role. Some of the late twists in this film might look overdone and the violence might be too explicit for some sensitive viewers, but Headhunters deserve recommendation as one of the stylistically more unusual examples of Nordic Noir.

RATING: 7/10