Headhunters
It’s a mark of just how hot the
Scandinavian crime genre is right now, thanks in large part to outings
like The Killing and the exploits of a girl with a certain
tattoo, that the remake rights and worldwide distribution to
Norwegian-German Headhunters were purchased for substantial sums
before it was even released to cinemas. Names such as Martin Scorsese
and Mark Wahlberg are already being bandied about in preparation of a
Hollywood remake, the film was a box office sensation in its native
Norway and received rave reviews from critics the world over.
Headhunters sees the talented
Aksel Hennie starring as Roger Brown, a corporate headhunter who
moonlights as an art thief to finance the high-rolling lifestyle he
feels he requires to compensate for both his small stature and
statuesque girlfriend Diana (comely newcomer
Synnøve Lund). When
a former mercenary turned CEO (Nikolaj
Coster-Waldau, Game of
Thrones) arrives on the scene, looking for both a lifestyle change
and a buyer for a Rubens masterwork, Roger thinks he spies another easy
mark and possibly just a retirement score. But he’s very possibly just
met his match, and once the hunter becomes the prey the stage is set for
one of the most cunning and solidly crafted crime flicks of recent
memory.
It’s difficult to give too much more of the
plot away without spoiling its many surprises, but needless to say it
doesn’t disappoint. Each of its leads puts in an impeccable performance
and the film has been expertly cast - impossibly handsome Nikolaj ‘Jaime
Lannister’ Coster-Waldau is the perfect foil for the unlikely
protagonist, whom the viewer is expertly manipulated to identifying with
due to his many believable misadventures, and both Lund and The
Killing’s Julie Ølgaard engender a further air of mystery as the
story’s femme fatales. But it is Hennie who really carries the
show, putting in the performance of his career as the beleaguered art
thief in well and truly over his head.
More thrilling than The Killing and
every bit as gripping as any Stieg Larson flight of fancy,
Headhunters is part heist movie, part chase film, and thoroughly
exciting from beginning to end. Top notch stuff.
Bonus Features
Behind Headhunters - Making Of
Featurette (23 minutes)
