Review of Headhunters (2011) by Jeremy I — 12 Jan 2014

Headhunters is a brilliant Norwegian film that I recently watched because I was like, "Why the hell not?".

Boy, am I glad I did. It was fucking brilliant!

The title has something of a double meaning: it describes the anti-hero protagonist, Roger Brown, who works as a corporate headhunter, a job that he uses to case potential victims for art thievery, something that he needs to do to subsidize a lavish life-style, which is something he feels he needs to have to keep his wife, "one of those tall, smart beauties; the type used to be being loved; the type who take love for granted" attracted to him. Headhunters also refers to Clas Greve (played by everyone's favorite Kingslayer Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) a recently retired corporate executive who once worked for a special forces unit particularly skilled at tracking people down...

As a Norwegian film, Headhunters possesses an edge that you're not likely to find in the likes of a Hollywood film. Because, let's just be clear: Hollywood is largely constituted of cowards, only interested in one thing: money. I'm not saying these cowards don't often make some fine films, but it's always because of money, not in spite of it. So they'll always make the conservative bet. On the other hand, whoever made Headhunters was interested in making a good film. As such it's gross and gruesome, without ever feeling exploitative. It's also quite funny. Black comedy, to be sure, but that's the top shelf humor anyway. It's tightly scripted; the suspense continues to ratchet up and you almost begin to feel sorry for the little art-thief. Intelligent too; everything makes sense but it's still hard to guess what exactly will come next. Combine with fine performances all around and basically you have a great film.

Final Say: Headhunters is an intelligent, entertaining crime thriller that isn't exactly much different from past crime thrillers but nevertheless feels unique and fresh. The Norwegian flavor to it, no doubt. But regardless of where it got its verve, Headhunters is absolutely worth a watch!

How to Watch It: If I'm not mistaken, it's currently free on both Netflix and Amazon Prime, so my suggestion is that you should do just that: watch it free!

Trivia: The protag Roger Brown is played by Askel Hennie, who has already made a transition to American film. He's in The Last Knights, alongside co-stars Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen. And he's also cast in Brett Ratner's Hercules.