No Way Out in Norway

Headhunters

***½  out of **** 

Directed by: Morten Tyldum

Starring: Aksel Hennie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Synnøve Macody Lund, Julie Ølgaard and Eivind Sander

Running time: 100 minutes

As the boastful but insecure protagonist Roger Brown (played by Aksel Hennie) tells the audience, he stands meager at just 1.68 metres tall. To compensate for his lack of, well, size, Brown has a beautiful blonde wife, a lavish country home and a prosperous career as one of Oslo’s finest headhunters.

Roger Brown is a dazzler. He tells a client near the film’s start that an artist’s entire worth depends on their reputation. But to keep up with the expenses that his lifestyle and position commands, he is also an art connoisseur and thief.

He inquires into the clients that depend on him for job recruitment advice, finds out when they are not home, and skillfully manages to get away with replacing the original works hanging in their places with a duplicate copy.

The scheming and stealing are to help offer his wife, Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund), a plush lifestyle, and one that allows her to open an art gallery of her own work. However, Diana would trade all of these opportunities to have Roger’s child.

But Brown finds an elusive secret when stealing a genuine Rubens portrait from the apartment of a crafty tech businessman, Clas Greve (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, best known to North American audiences as Jaime Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones).

The confusion and paranoia soon escalates into a breakneck game of cat-and-mouse, although one that is constantly surprising and compellingly acted.

Headhunters is a twisted comedy-thriller, based on a 2008 novel by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. Nesbø’s troubled anti-heroes and swift plotting make him easy fodder for big screen adaptations (Martin Scorsese announced recently that he will direct an adaptation of Nesbø’s The Snowman).

With steely eyes and an expressive, angular face that resembles a young Christopher Walken, Hennie manages to grab the audience’s sympathy.

Hennie’s performance is smooth and refined, situating himself within the luxury of the protagonist. But as the plot thickens to submit his character to relentless and horrifying obstacles – many with bloody and gruesome aftermaths – we grow attached to him as he goes through dire circumstances.

Very few films bring us so close to the main character that we are content with watching his face twist and eyes dart around as he figures out what is happening around him.

Director Morten Tyldum keeps the plotting as tight and focused as tiptop Ludlum. He uses deft visual and auditory clues to create suspense and makes effective use of a strikingly intense musical score.

Tyldum also manages to balance two wildly varying tones and use them in tandem without becoming plodding or jarring. Between the increasingly tense cat-and-mouse antics, the film gets its moments of ridiculous, unexpected slapstick.

Swiftly paced, strongly acted and stylishly composed, Headhunters is a terrific Norwegian noir that is also about to get the Hollywood remake treatment. One doubts that the steady and successful balance of life-threatening violence with light humour will make such an easy transition between the continents.