Movie Review: Headhunters (2011)

Hello guys. I am sorry that it’s been a while. I wanted to give you a review earlier this weekend but I was away and couldn’t do anything about it. But now that I am home I have watched a movie and sat my butt down to review it. You know what the fun part of it is? It comes from Norway, the country my dad is from, it is also our neighboring country.

Ladies and gentlemen… “Headhunters”.

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is a short man, but he still got a pretty great life. He is an accomplished headhunter and thief. He also got a beautiful wife (Synnøve Macody Lund) and a very expensive house. One day he tries to steal a very valuable painting from former mercenary Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). And then a game of cat and mouse starts where Brown has to go on the run. And I was intrigued the whole way through. This is an action-thriller with an incredibly suspenseful and really well-told plot. While most action-thrillers these days rely on big action set-pieces and bare-bones storytelling, but “Headhunters” manages to create a compelling plot that had me interested through all of it. It also has some pretty good twists to offer.

The characters (despite the strange situation they’re in) all fell like very real people. You feel like they have gone through life in very different ways and they never feel fake. And the acting in the movie is pretty fucking great as well. Aksel Hennie is great as Roger Brown, showing himself as a man terrified for his life yet still maintaining a sense of calm. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was also pretty great in the movie, playing a pretty intimidating man/villain. Really, all the acting was pretty great, but can you expect anything less from a movie that stars Max Manus and Jamie Lannister?

The music for the movie was composed by Trond Bjerknæs and Jeppe Kaas and it was really good. I wouldn’t call it anything unique or new, but I woiuld still say that it’s really good and fits the movie very well. It’s your typical action-thriller style of score, but it’s still good. It doesn’t bring the movie down simply because of it being similar to other scores that we have heard.

This is a great looking movie. The shots look fantastic and you know what? Whenever there is action in the movie, it is all practical, no CGI. Sure, there might have been some CG at some point, but I sure as shit didn’t notice any. That is especially impressive when it comes to one scene in particular that made me go “Is he seriously d- he is seriously doing that… shit”. A lot of praise to the people who made the movie for that. Thank you, Morten Tyldum for directing it as well as you did. Also, if you didn’t know, this movie is based on the book of the same name by Jo Nesbø who my parents have recommended a lot of times so I should probably read one or two or… all of his books. Because now I am very curious about them.

This movie has been well-received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 92% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 72/100. Roger Ebert gave the movie 3,5/4 stars. And on imdb.com it has a score of 7,6/10.

“Headhunters” is a very odd thriller… and I love that. The story is intriguing and suspenseful, the acting is great, the music is good, the directing is great, the action is great and I just had an overall great time with it. Time for my final score. FAEN! My final score for “Headhunters” is a 9,88/10. I think it’s worthy of the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

“Headhunters” is now reviewed.

No heads are being hunted, what a disappointment…