Begoña and I went yesterday to the theatre and see Headhunters (Norwegian: Hodejegerne), a 2011 Norwegian-German film directed by Morten Tyldum and based on Jo Nesbø’s novel Hodejegerne (Headhunters).
Plot Summary: Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is Norway’s most accomplished headhunter. He lives a life of luxury well beyond his means and chooses to subsidize his expensive lifestyle through stealing highly prized art. When his beautiful wife Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund), an art gallery owner, introduces him to a former mercenary Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Danish-Dutchman Clas Greve is the perfect candidate to Rogers new recruiting assignment, with his background as a former elite soldier and senior management in the electronics industry. Brown learns that Greve is in the possession of an extremely valuable painting by Rubens and decides to risk it all to get rid of his financial problems.
As a film, Headhunters is narrated at an excellent pace that enables to keep the interest most of the time despite some obvious flaws. But one can just sit, relax and enjoy it. It can be seen which is quite something, given the bleak outlook of our screens now-a-days. I fully agree with Norman at Crime Scraps Review: ‘Headhunters is a Scandinavian thriller with no pretensions to movie greatness, but it does have some memorable set pieces, and interesting over the top acting performances.’ I’m also looking forward to reading the book.
My rating: 6/10.
José Ignacio – I’m glad you enjoyed the film even if there were some “holes” in it. It’ll be interesting to see what you think of the novel now you’ve seen the film. Very often (‘though not always) I like books better than the films based on them. But I’m rather a purist when it comes to film adaptations.
Glad you both enjoyed it, Jose Ignacio. I will probably watch it soon, too. (I thought the book was great fun.)
motifs be a grain of truth