Headhunters
With the surge in interest for Scandinavian crime fiction, it was only a matter of time before Norway’s Jo Nesbø found one of his books making the leap to the big screen.
Plot summary
A successful corporate headhunter by day and prolific art thief by night is lured into a dangerous game of cat and mouse when he goes after the biggest heist of his life.
With The Girl In The Dragon Tattoo phenomenon kick starting a surge in interest in Scandinavian crime fiction, it was only a matter of time before Norway’s Jo Nesbø found one of his books making the leap to the big screen. Production company Yellow Bird – responsible for bringing the Scandinavian versions of the Millennium novels to life – have skipped over Nesbø’s Harry Hole series and instead plumped for his stand-alone novel, Headhunters.
The headhunter in question is Roger Brown, a corporate recruitment specialist by day who supplements his income with some after-hours art theft. He feels compelled to do so. Short in stature but tall in vanity, he fears his stunning wife may look elsewhere for love unless he can keep up mortgage payments on their fabulous designer house and jet-set lifestyle.
Then the dashingly handsome Clas Greve, an acclaimed businessman, turns up in Brown’s life. Both have something that the other is determined to get. Brown can get Greve a coveted CEO position at a top tech company, while Greve has a lost masterpiece that Brown wishes to steal. When the picture is swiped from Greve’s apartment, and he finds himself passed over for the job, Greve – a former special operations operative in the military – sets out to track down Brown and exact revenge.
Headhunters is a bold and original tale. For a start, Brown is far from being your average protagonist. As played by Aksel Hennie, he’s a priggish dork who masks a mass of insecurities behind a faux alpha-male exterior. He likes to believe he’s a master of his own destiny, and so when he finds himself – literally – running scared – his cool façade quickly evaporates.
Director Morten Tyldum has constructed a stylish and sophisticated game of cat and mouse that weaves layers of intrigue in its first half, before exploding into a bombastic chase movie in its second. Fatally, the plot itself plays fast and loose with credibility, and the story takes some jaw-droppingly implausible twists. High drama spills over into camp melodrama, which in turn give rise to some moments of dark humour. However, despite these failings, Headhunters remains thrillingly entertaining throughout – even if you do inevitably find yourself painstakingly raking over the plot afterwards in an attempt to understand its far-fetched intricacies.
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