Headhunters - The Hunt is on

Language - Norwegian | Country - Norway | Year - 2011 | Director - Morten Tyldum

Let’s get some action films from the World Cinema. HeadHunters is from Norway, was termed as next “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

The film starts something like in the film Sodhu Kavvum, five rules that you shouldn't break when you do a crooked job. In this film the crooked job of the protagonist is to steal art paintings. The comparison of Sodhu Kavvum ends here, the rest of the film is full of action chase, blood, more blood, trust-betrayal and a happy ending.

Roger Brown

Plot - **Spoilers ahead**

Roger Brown ( Aksel Hanne), 168 cms tall is a recruiter, living in a posh mansion with his super-model like wife Diana, who is taller than him. He has a second job, stealing art, which fulfills his needs to lead a high-fi life and also to please his wife with costly gifts. Roger and his firm are in the process of finding a new CEO for a company named Pathfinder. Through his wife, Roger gets acquainted with Clas Greve ( Nikolaj Coster Waldau ) from Denmark, a semi-retired ex-army professional, who is in Norway to look after his grandmother’ property. 

Clas Greve

Roger learns from Diana that Clas has a valuable painting in his apartment. He also feels Clas will be a right person for Pathfinder as CEO. As always, in Clas’ absence Roger steels the art from his home, but in the process he finds his wife’ cell phone there. As suspicion grows, he rejects Clas as a possible candidate for the CEO post. 

This is when things turn upside down for Roger. Clas plans to kill Roger. Clas, with all his knowledge in tracking technology follows him. Scared Roger run for his life and struggles to find the reason for Clas to kill him. And the rest of the story is how Roger survives this chase and how he overcomes it.

Diana and Roger

“..I am 168 centimeters. And you know what? That is more than enough.

Directed by Morten Tyldum. The film is adapted from the best-selling Scandinavian novel by Jo Nesbo. Even though we see lots of blood, it is not gore. Most of the time, the story is said in a lighter comic mode and there is no fast camerawork like in chase-movies, the photography is slow and steady.

Aksel Hanne as Roger Brown shows fear in his eyes and his urge to know the truth makes us curious to know “what will happen to him”. The editing and direction is worth to mention, sometimes, a few seconds of flashbacks changes the entire scene. A good director has to make the viewer to feel for the characters whenever they are in a good-bad state/mood, Morten makes us to feel for Roger’ suffering.

Trailer