With his contacts and multitudes of interviews set up with potential candidates for C-level jobs, opportunity comes in setting up meetings, and then robbing them blind of valuable art, with counterfeits in their place so that his handiwork won't go detected for some time. But Jo Nesbø's novel is more than meets the eye, and Brown has a separate occupation. The top dog headhunter in his industry, with arrogance and swagger to boot, his opening monologue about Reputation is so seductive that you'll hang on to his every word. The bulk of the credit goes to Aksel Hennie, who stars as the protagonist Roger Brown, the go-to person should anyone need a job reference. With the success of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Hollywood is probably now turning its sights to Scandinavia, and this Norwegian film has all the ingredients that is set to thrill audiences ready for a nice mystery that will leave you guessing just how the protagonist will be reeling out of the troubles that he had committed. Headhunters is out on April 27, 2012.By the time this film reaches its conclusion, you can just about tell that Hollywood would have knocked on the producer's doors, and extended a contract for rights to a remake. (Cases in point: Let The Right One In, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo).
Headhunters is one of those wowzer Scandinavian flicks getting a cursory limited release before it's fast-tracked to the American remake factory. The often gasp-inducing, yet believable gore makeups by Jim Udenberg and Rick Marr must be acknowledged as well. The images are well-served by sharp and dynamic, but not frenetic or gimmicky, editing by Vidar Flataukan. Joining the fray along the way are predators and pawns, among them Brown's disgruntled ex-lover Lotte (Julie Olgaard), his sex-starved sidekick Ove (Eivand Sander), and Sperre (Reidar Sorensen), the relentless police detective who won't cut Brown a break, thereby forcing him deeper and deeper into the quicksand.Ĭinematography by John Andreas Andersen (who also did Babycall, the recent horror-thriller starring Noomi Rapace) is slick and cool, yet intimate and immediate. Or… maybe those graces aren't as good as Brown thinks, and maybe this isn't just another heist. Brown covets Clas's rare Rubens painting and, under the guise of poaching him for a high powered job, he worms his way into the man's good graces. The trouble begins when Brown's goddess-like wife Diana (Synnove Macody Lund) introduces him to suave, wealthy art collector and alpha-male, Clas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). To say too much about this taut, and often quite gory, shocking and surprising twisty mystery would spoil the freezer-burn fun… but, I do have a review to write. The movie starts (somewhat reminiscent of Fight Club) with a voiced-over tour of his stark, modernist designer digs (as well as the outlining of certain rules) then flows into a day in the life of Brown… one which goes horribly wrong in this blackest of black comedies, as one deadly domino falls and leads to the next Rubixian conundrum. I don't know enough about the chicken / egg dynamic here to say whether it's the source novel by Jo Nesbø or the directing talents of Morten Tyldum that makes Headhunters so damn much fun… but whichever: I was rapt from start to finish. More than anything, though, he seems like a Nordic defector from Miller's Crossing, Burn After Reading or an as-yet unmade Coen Bros. While Brown is as calculating, but not as cold as, Bateman or Ripley, there are nuances in the character - cinematically, at least - which are reminiscent of American Psycho and Ripley's Game.
That is, until he becomes the prime suspect in a bizarre murder case.
Whether he’s snatching up the finest talents as a top-tier corporate headhunter, moonlighting as an art thief of top-tier works, or wooing wondrous women, Roger Brown's DNA is hardly in the way. Perhaps that explains the exec's need to compensate by collecting some of the finest things in life, and to surround himself with them, basking in their beauty. “All I inherited is bad genes,” Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) tells us, early on.
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