Headhunters (film)

Headhunters (Norwegian: Hodejegerne) is a 2011 Norwegian action thriller film based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Jo Nesbø. The film was directed by Morten Tyldum and stars Aksel Hennie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Synnøve Macody Lund. 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.

Headhunters
Norwegian pre-release theatrical poster
Directed by	Morten Tyldum
Produced by	Marianne Gray Asle Vatn
Screenplay by	Lars Gudmestad Ulf Ryberg
Based on	Hodejegerne by Jo Nesbø
Starring	Aksel Hennie Synnøve Macody Lund Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Eivind Sander Julie Ølgaard
Music by	Trond Bjerknes Jeppe Kaas
Cinematography	John Andreas Andersen
Edited by	Vidar Flataukan
Production company	Friland Film Yellow Bird
Distributed by	Nordisk Film
Release date	26 August 2011 (2011-08-26) (Norway) 4 November 2011 (2011-11-04) (Sweden)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	Norway
Language	Norwegian Danish
Budget	USD 3,636,887 [1]
Box office	USD 15,391,296[2]

Released in Norway on 26 August 2011, Headhunters was a box office success, receiving positive reviews, and was nominated for multiple awards, including four Amanda Awards and a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

This is the highest-grossing Norwegian film in history.[3]

Plot

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie), Norway's most successful headhunter, supports his lavish lifestyle by stealing paintings from his clients; his partner, Ove (Eivind Sander), works at a surveillance company and deactivates security at the victims' homes, allowing Roger to swap the art for a counterfeit. Asked to dinner by his mistress, Lotte (Julie Ølgaard), Roger declines and ends their relationship. Roger's wife and art gallery owner, Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund), introduces him to Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a former executive for GPS tech company HOTE, who wants to work for Pathfinder, for whom Roger is recruiting. Diana reveals that Clas has asked her to authenticate a lost Rubens painting he inherited that is believed to be worth millions.

Roger takes Clas to lunch to discuss the job at Pathfinder, and soon learns Clas used to be a member of a special forces unit that specialized in tracking people. Despite his misgivings, Roger meets with Ove to work out details on stealing the painting. Roger manages to steal it from Clas' home, but he discovers Diana's cellphone beside Clas' bed. Later, after a seemingly successful meeting with Pathfinder, an upset Roger flippantly informs Clas that the company may be looking for someone else to fill the position.

The next morning, Roger finds Ove in his (Roger's) car, apparently dead from a poison syringe embedded in the car seat; when Roger dumps Ove in a lake, the water revives him, as he didn't get a full dose of the poison. Driving Ove to his cabin, Roger puts him in bed and ignores his demands for medical attention, as he does not want the police involved. Ove pulls a gun in response, causing a shoot-out where Roger accidentally kills Ove. Finding Clas has followed him to Ove's cabin, Roger narrowly escapes after a scuffle. Trying to lose Clas' tracking devices, Roger switches his car for Ove's and throws his clothes in a lake, changing into Ove's spare uniform and fleeing to a farm where Ove used to stay. Clas tails Roger to the farm with his dog and murders the farmer, but Roger evades them. Trying to escape on a tractor, Roger is attacked by Clas' dog, which he kills by impaling it on the tractor's forks. Roger, believing Clas is chasing him, drives erratically and falls from the tractor, only to find his pursuer is a stranger wanting to help.

Waking in a hospital, Roger learns the police think he is Ove, and arrest him for the farmer's murder when he tries to escape. Driving to the station, the officers pull over to block a truck reported stolen. Remembering that Clas developed a nanotechnology gel that is very difficult to remove, Roger realizes that he's being tracked through GPS gel rubbed in his hair by Diana, and Clas is driving the truck; despite Roger's protests, the officers ignore him, allowing Clas to ram the car off a cliff. Playing dead until Clas leaves the scene, Roger shaves his head and hides his hair on a body, then swaps clothes with a detective's disfigured body to fake his death.

Roger turns to Lotte for help, only to discover she has always worked for Clas, who is still a HOTE executive and trying to steal Pathfinder's secrets. Lotte admits that she put the GPS gel in Roger's hair, and that she suggested dinner so she could introduce him to Clas; since Roger ended their affair, Clas used a counterfeit Rubens painting to meet Roger through Diana. When Roger lets his guard down, Lotte attacks him with a knife, causing Roger to shoot and kill her in self-defense. Roger returns home and admits everything to Diana, who apologizes for her affair with Clas. The next morning, Roger goes to a morgue to retrieve his cut hair, while Diana contacts Clas to resume their affair.

While cleaning Ove's cabin of evidence, Roger is confronted by Clas, who was able to track the location transmitters in the cut hair. Clas gloats that Diana has returned to him, and tries to shoot Roger but fails. Roger fatally wounds Clas with Ove's gun, explaining that Diana only resumed their affair so she could load Clas' gun with blanks. Ove's home security records Clas involved in a shootout, though Roger stays in a camera blind spot near Ove. The footage, combined with evidence doctored by Roger, suggests Ove and Clas were art thieves who killed the farmer, Lotte, then finally each other after a dispute, and the police ignore the minor inconsistencies because they want the case closed. Later, Roger and a visibly pregnant Diana are shown selling their house, and Roger returns to work, giving the Pathfinder job to the client he rejected and robbed at the beginning of the film.

Cast

• Aksel Hennie as Roger Brown
• Synnøve Macody Lund as Diana Brown
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Clas Greve
• Eivind Sander as Ove Kjikerud
• Julie Ølgaard as Lotte Madsen
• Reidar Sørensen as Brede Sperre
• Kyrre Haugen Sydnessas Jeremias Lander
• Mads Mogeland as Joar Sunded
• Baard Owe as Sindre Aa
• Torgrim Mellum Stene as Atle Nerum
• Mattis Herman Nyquist as Ferdinand
• Nils Jørgen Kaalstad as Stig
• Joachim Rafaelsen as Brugd
• Gunnar Skramstad Johnsen as Eskild Monsen
• Lars Skramstad Johnsen as Endride Monsen

Production and remake

The Swedish production company Yellow Bird acquired the film rights to Jo Nesbø's 2008 novel Headhunters in 2009.[4] It was the first of Nesbø's novels to be turned into a film.[5] The film was shot in and around Oslo on a budget of 30 million NOK over 40 days.[1]

A Hollywood remake of Headhunters is planned, with the British journalist and screenwriter Sacha Gervasi writing the screenplay.[6] The rights to the English-language remake were sold to the American film studio Summit Entertainment in 2011 while the Norwegian film was still in production.[7][8]

In an episode broadcast in 2013, MythBusters tested the feasibility of the film's car collision scenario (a person in the back seat of a car surviving a 50 mph T-boning by a truck due to cushioning by heavy persons either side), concluding it was not.

Music

Tracks used in the movie include:[9]

• "Weathervane" by Weathervane (writing name of Jimmy Gnecco and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) - over the end credits
• "Sleep Ferrari" published by Universal Publishing Production Music (no artist given)
• "Come Arround" [sic] by Goran Obad and Henrik Skarm

Release

The film was released in Norway on 26 August 2011[10] and was seen by 104,000 Norwegian moviegoers in its opening weekend, making it the second best opening weekend in Norwegian history, after Max Manus.[11] It was by far the most-watched domestic film of the year, with 557,086 tickets sold at the cinema, and the second most-watched including foreign films, only beaten by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.[12]

Reception

Headhunters received very positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 93% based on 98 reviews, with an average rating of 7.63 out of 10. The consensus reads, "Grisly, twisty, and darkly comic, Headhunters is an exhilaratingly oddball take on familiar thriller elements."[13] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 72 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on reviews from 26 critics.[14]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, praising the film as "an argument for the kinds of thrillers I miss. It entertains with story elements, in which the scares evolve from human behavior." "Unlike too many thrillers that depend on stunts, special effects and the Queasy cam, this one devises a plot where it matters what happens. It's not all kinetic energy."[15]

Accolades

Headhunters was the first Norwegian film to be nominated for a BAFTA (in the category Best Film Not in the English Language).[16] The film was also nominated for four Amanda Awards: People's Amanda (audience vote), Best Actor, Best Direction and Best Visual Effects, but not for Best Norwegian Film, leading to criticism of the Amanda jury.[17]

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result
2012	Amanda Award	People's Amanda		Won
		Best Actor	Aksel Hennie	Nominated
		Best Direction	Morten Tyldum	Nominated
		Best Visual Effects	Lars Erik Hansen, Jan Svalland	Nominated
2013	British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA)[16]	Best Film Not in the English Language		Nominated
2013	Empire Awards	Best Thriller		Won
2012	European Film Awards[10]	People's Choice Award for Best European Film		Nominated
2012	Golden Trailer Awards	Best Foreign Action Trailer		Nominated
2011	Philadelphia Film Festival	Audience Award - Honorable Mention		Won
2012	Phoenix Film Critics Society Award	Best Foreign Language Film		Nominated
2012	San Diego Film Critics Society Awards	Best Foreign Language Film		Nominated
2013	Saturn Awards	Best International Film		Won
2012	St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards	Best Foreign Language Film		Nominated

See also

• Scandinavian noir

References

1. Pål Marius Tingve (12 October 2010). "Aksel (34) klinte til med Garp (2)". Dagbladet (in Norwegian). Retrieved 3 April 2012.
2. "'Headhunters' (2012)". Box Office Mojo. IMDB. Retrieved 15 June 2012.
3. Christopher Rosen (October 27, 2011). "The Norwegian Film That's a Bigger Success Than 'Harry Potter' and 'Transformers'". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29.
4. "Yellow Bird vil lage Jo Nesbø-film". Rushprint. 12 May 2009. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
5. Kristoffer Pettersen Rambøl and Liza Stokke (13 October 2010). "Se Aksel Hennie i "Hodejegerne"". NRK. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
6. Peder Ottosen (15 December 2011). "Nå skrives Hollywood-versjonen av "Hodejegerne"". Dagbladet (in Norwegian). Retrieved 3 April 2012.
7. Jorn Rossing Jensen (11 October 2011). "Summit plans English-language remake of Norwegian thriller Headhunters". Screen International. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
8. Andreeva, Nellie (March 8, 2016). "Morten Tyldum Developing 'Headhunters' U.S. Remake With Yellow Bird". Deadline.
9. Headhunters Soundtrack (and confirmed with the soundtrack listing on the DVD)
10. "Headhunters heads for EFA". Norwegian Film Institute. 5 September 2012. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
11. Jan Gunnar Furuly (2 September 2011). "Hodejegerne lånte scener fra Stieg Larsson-film". Aftenposten (in Norwegian). Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
12. Kjersti Nipen (29 December 2011). "Ja, vi elsker oppfølgere". Dagbladet. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
13. "Headhunters (2012)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
14. "Headhunters". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
15. Ebert, Roger (9 May 2012). "Headhunters". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 15 June 2012.
16. "Hodejegerne nominert til BAFTA" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Film Institute. 9 January 2013. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
17. NTB (18 August 2012). "Hodejegerne» vant publikumspris". Bergens Tidende. Retrieved 3 February 2013.

External links

• Headhunters – official site
• Headhunters on IMDb
• Headhunters at Rotten Tomatoes