Gloucester Cinematics Film Club met on Thursday to watch Headhunters. Here's what film club member Simon Barton thought of the film...
Headhunters is a compelling, darkly comic thriller, based on the novel Hodejegerne by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo. It tells the story of Roger Brown ( Aksel Hennie), a headhunter for high-powered business clients - a man whose main preoccupations are maintaining his fearsome reputation and keeping his wife supplied with all the Scandinavian furniture and expensive jewellery she needs. This lifestyle comes with a high price, however, so Roger has a second, lucrative career as an art thief. When he steals a priceless Rubens from ex-mercenary Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) he finds himself becoming the hunted...
As Roger's life spirals into an ever-worsening series of disasters, we find ourselves rooting for this originally unsympathetic character and his desperate attempts to evade the seemingly-unstoppable Clas Greve. The film veers from violent thriller to black comedy as the bodies pile up and the story twists and turns to an unexpected and clever finale. Aksel Hennie is wonderful as the outwardly confident but inwardly vulnerable Roger and there are fine performances by Synnove Macody Lund as Diana and Eivind Sander as Roger's psychotic partner-in-crime, Ove.
The inevitable American remake of Headhunters is probably already underway, but I would recommend seeing this film in its original, quirky Norwegian version, with its almost cartoon-like violence, beautiful landscapes, amoral characters and a demented chase scene involving a tractor and a very unlucky dog...
You can read more from Simon on his blog HERE.
You can read more from Simon on his blog HERE.
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