Headhunters (2011)
August 19, 2017 2:54 PM - Subscribe

Headhunters (Hodejegerne), a fantastic action thriller film, based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Norwegian Jo Nesbø. Aksel Hennie portrays the successful but insecure corporate recruiter Roger Brown who lives a double life as an art thief to fund his lavish lifestyle. He finds out that one of his job prospects is in possession of a valuable painting and sets out to steal it.

The film is the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time.
posted by growabrain (10 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh, hey, we saw this because my SO has been a Nikolaj Coster Waldau fangirl (her words) since New Amsterdam.

And I remember almost nothing about it, except it's pretty tense.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 5:30 PM on August 19, 2017


Oh, there's a lot of stuff I remember, but I can't tell any of it because HYUUUUUUGE SPOILERS. I'll wait until other people watch it.
posted by rednikki at 9:00 AM on August 20, 2017


It's pretty good in the thriller-with-nonsensical-plot category. There's 36 min of exposition and then it's 1 hour of non-stop action, quite violent and gory, with poor Roger getting in all sorts of deep, deep shit (he's called Brown for a reason I guess), and a lot of very very silly dark comedy (overweight twin policemen as airbags, toilet paper tubes as snorkels...). The material would be perfect for the Coen brothers of Fargo / Burn after reading / The Big Lebowski / Blood Simple / Raising Arizona: the main character is supposedly successful but acts/looks like the kind of sad sack often found in the Coens' movies. Still, I can't decide if it's meant seriously or if it's just deadpan Norwegian humour. Neither the plot nor NCW's character make any sense: perhaps it's a parody of those extra convoluted plots that have been plaguing the thriller genre since The Big Sleep. I did prefer Kraftidioten, perhaps because it embraced its dark comedy roots more openly.
posted by elgilito at 11:45 AM on August 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Thank you elgiliti, I'll check out Kraftidioten.

By the way, this may be a good place to mention: To see m/any movie nowadays, Google "NameOfMovie watch online", and you'll find streaming services that have it. As long as you don't click on the bad pop-ups, usually you're fine.
posted by growabrain at 12:57 PM on August 20, 2017


So I saw 'kraftidioten' (which means 'an idiot') and I enjoyed it a lot. I loved Bruno Ganz as the Serbian godfather, and it reminded me very much of the winter of 1973 I spent in a Norwegian farm.

Here is the Wikipedia list of Norwegian films - I'm going to dig in.
posted by growabrain at 10:44 PM on August 20, 2017


If it can beat this scene from Troll Hunters:

"Are you Christian? They can smell Christian blood!"
"I'm Muslim! Am I safe when we sneak up on them?"
(taking the notion very seriously)"... I have no idea."

Troll Hunters may have been Swedish rather than Norwegian, tho. Teh Goobles is failing me tonite.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:48 PM on August 20, 2017


I enjoyed this much more than I expected - it is very much a Norwegian take on a Coen Bros movie. The movie is responsible for getting me to read the books of Jo Nesbo.
posted by hoodrich at 12:58 PM on August 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


I prefer Headhunters over Kraftidioten. Not that there's anything wrong with Kraftidioten but Headhunters has more of everything (action, comedy, drama). Totally over the top but that's how I like it.
posted by Kosmob0t at 1:38 AM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Does anybody read the comments down here?"...

.....

Btw, this is a good time to update my 7yo comment from above;

Somebody on letterboxd collected a list of "ALL" the movies of the world, broken down by countries (AND languages!), a list which is even larger than what Wikipedia usually offers.

So, f. ex. for Norway, you have 4,095 movies [including co-productions that counts multiple countries], which you can sort by 'Highest rated' or 'most popular'. So if somebody wants to take bite out of the "best" of each culture, this is the ultimate list.

FFS, they have 138 movies from Kyrgyzstan and 21 movies in ESPERANTO!!

Brb, going to watch some Kyrgyzstani movies in Esperanto...
posted by growabrain at 11:03 AM on January 28


And another aside: I find it baffling that even though Letterbox is 14 years old, has 17 million members, and is usually considered a fairly-benign social network for movie buffs, it is absent on Wikipedia.

I use Wikipedia to check on movies many times a day, but the review references on it are exclusive to IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes - and never to Letterboxed.

I never heard about LB until the last few years, but I find it a superior service than the other corporate, bloated and hard-to-navigate platforms. It's much easier to use, it's cleaner, it has no advertising [a huge one for me], and it's from New Zealand.

Also, it's not owned by Amazon or by Warner Bros.
posted by growabrain at 11:21 AM on January 28


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