Poor man’s Heat: although the acting is less nuanced (excluding Al Pacino) and the writing less subtle, I personally found Headhunters more fun to watch.
★★★★☆
Headhunters is a 2011 film about one man’s journey to accept himself. Also, it’s in Norwegian… If you have anything in common with me, you’ve assumed this is a black and white film where the main characters stare at each for two hours and was highly recommended by that jackass friend of yours with the waxed handlebar mustache and Buddy Holly glasses even though he has 20/20 eyesight. Thankfully, not all stereotypes are true. Headhunters is awesome. Although, this is a film about coming to terms with yourself, the writers chose to wrap it inside a heist/suspense/chase film. A stroke of genius.
Since any good suspense film relies on what comes next, I’ll keep plot summary to a minimum. Aksel Hennie plays Roger Brown, the insecure main character who is a corporate headhunter and moonlights as an art thief. He is put into contact with Clas Greve, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who I recognize from The Other Woman (sadly), but you probably know from Game of Thrones. Roger becomes a hunted man and is forced to thwart 80 minutes of attempted assassination. It kept me (literally) on the edge of my seat the entire film, and I never was sure what was going to happen next.
I felt the acting was average and does well enough to serve the plot, which, again is amazing. I never knew exactly where the cat-and-mouse game across Norway was going to take me, but I was always excited when we got there. Little known fact: Norway seems to look remarkably like Oregon. In addition to the well-written plot, it’s also told with a few Ocean’s 11 type asides, where something amazing happens, then a voiceover explains how the characters pulled it off. Like About A Boy, this could’ve been cheesy, but I thought it was well done.
The only problem I had with the film was that I don’t speak Norwegian. I watched with subtitles, which was a chore for about 15 minutes, but then I forgot they were there because the plot was so enthralling. Unfortunately, because I was reading along, it was difficult to really assess the acting. It might be better than the average rating I gave it. Overall, this is super exciting, really fun film that I recommend you go watch right now.
You can currently stream Headhunters on Netflix.
Next week Josh will be reviewing All is Lost, featuring Robert Redford. I assigned Josh this movie because there are scenes from it that still stick with me and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film quite like it.
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