Every once in a while a film will come along that has the ability to exemplify what a certain genre should be while at the same time never being predictable. Headhunters is one of those films.
Based on the novel by best-selling author Jo Nesbo, Headhunters follows Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie), a successful business headhunter for a large corporation, or at least that’s his day job and cover. In reality he uses his job to search for people he can steal expensive pieces of art from which he does to keep up his well-off lifestyle with his beautiful wife Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund). One day Roger is introduced to Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who some may recognise as Jaime Lannister from HBO’s Game of Thrones), who supposedly has a painting so valuable that it would mean he never has to steal again. However, he soon finds out that Clas isn’t his average victim.
There’s a whole lot more to the plot than that but this is one of those movies where it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. Headhunters has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, surprising and shocking both in how events all tie into one another – keep your wits about you as many seemingly insignificant things may turn out to be more than meets the eye – and just in how it does so much that isn’t expected in the genre. It’s never predictable, safe or generic in both plot and style, making for an exciting and extremely involving experience that does everything it can to keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing from scene to scene.
What the film also delivers in spades is character development and emotion. Indeed this is a slick, stylish and highly enjoyable mystery-thriller but there’s also a lot of heart to it. You care about the main character and his relationship with his wife, you care when he gets hurt and, perhaps above all else, you want him to get away clean from the crazy situation. That’s helped largely by Aksel Hennie, who brings a believability and relatability to a character that, on the surface, isn’t all that likeable. There’s something to be said about genuinely caring, especially in the thriller genre. It’s not just a bunch of over-the-top chase sequences and gun shoot-outs with nothing of substance to back it up.
As well as it being a purely entertaining thriller, the film is also an admirable social commentary on everything from corporate business to economically-driven aspirations to family life. But at the same time it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to ram any sort of grand message down your throat. Having all this craziness going on against the backdrop of a business landscape lends it both a uniqueness and a relevance to the world we live in today.
Full of more twists and turns than you’re likely to find in any other movie this year and with a swift pace that makes the time fly by, Headhunters accomplishes what it sets out to do with impressive panache. An expertly pulled off Norwegian thriller that’s both smart and entertaining in equal measure. One of the best films of the year so far.
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