Headhunters
Hodejegerne

A Special Presentation at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival®, this adaptation of Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbø’s award-winning bestseller is a wildly entertaining and darkly comic thriller that takes devastating aim at modern mores.

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie, Max Manus, Cold Lunch) seems to be living the prototypical twenty-first-century success story. A high-priced corporate headhunter, he’s married to statuesque blonde gallery owner Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund), enjoys some fun and frolic on the side with his mistress Lotte (Julie Ølgaard), and lives in an opulent modern home. The only problem is that
Roger suffers from a crippling Napoleon complex: he’s so terrified of losing Diana that he continually lavishes her with absurdly extravagant gifts, which has left him so cash-strapped that he’s been forced to moonlight as an art thief, stealing rare works from his wealthy clientele. When Roger is introduced to the charismatic, super-suave Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, HBO’s Game of
Thrones), he thinks he’s found a perfect new target, and plots to steal the famously “lost” Rubens painting that Clas boasts of owning. But this latest job uncovers something that could bring Roger’s precariously maintained lifestyle crashing down around him.

A smart, streamlined suspenser packed with brilliant twists and thrilling setpieces, Headhunters is graced with a stellar cast that also includes Eivand Sander as Roger’s hapless partner in crime and Reidar Sorensen as the dogged police detective on Roger’s case. But the standout is Hennie, Norway’s biggest star, who brings a fierce and desperate conviction to the vain, driven and hapless Roger. Whether hanging upside down from a car that’s just plunged off a mountainside, dispatching a vicious attack dog or bossing his clients around, Hennie is utterly convincing as a man whose entire life is based on a false image of being in control—until he suddenly finds himself on the run. Wicked, witty and nerve-wracking, Headhunters is one of the best thrillers of recent years.

CRITICAL NOTES

"The film has some fairly grisly violence, but also considerable humor and the sort of intricate, thought-through storytelling you’d expect from Hitchcock or the Coen brothers." —Bob Mondello, NPR

Director: Morten Tyldum
Cast: Lars Gudmestad, Ulf Ryberg
Year: 2011
Runtime: 100 minutes
Country: Norway, Germany
Language: Norwegian, Danish, Russian, English
Distributor: Alliance Films


Ratings: ON NR / BC NR / AB NR / SK NR / MB NR / QC NR / Maritmes NR

SCREENING DATES 

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