Tag Archives: Thriller

I really enjoyed the bleak humour and the bloodiness of the violence in Headhunters – the film adaptation of Jo Nesbo’s novel. It’s a slick heist movie full of thrills, gore and intrigue. The movie begins by introducing Roger Brown, a slick, smarmy little headhunter with big overheads to meet. He makes his mortgage payments with high-end breaking and entering and stealing artworks from his rich interviewees. This is working out quite well for Roger until his latest interviewee and potential target, the suspicious Clas comes into his life. Clas is so not the sort of person you want to steal art from!

When Roger finds out that Clas is in Norway because he may have inherited a priceless Reubens painting, he thinks all his Christmases have arrived at once. So he sets up the perfect heist, getting all the details required to steal this painting with questions he puts to Clas in a job interview. It’s on this robbery that he uncovers some unfavourable circumstances and suddenly finds himself on the run from the maniac Clas and the authorities.

The film is deliriously effective at springing the element of surprise over and over again. Some of the outlandish things Roger is forced to do are really quite unbelievable but still very funny. If you are like me and have not read the book then prepare yourself for some graphic scenes, some gut-wrenchingly awful situations and some really clever twists. The plot turns randomly and the characters hold uncertain intentions and changing loyalties. Headhunters a disturbing, gripping action-thriller and you will not realise you are watching a subtitled film (if they aren’t usually your thing)
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