Headhunters - Two Movies Are Not Always Better Than One

"Living way beyond his means, corporate recruiter Roger Brown steals rare artwork to maintain his lavish lifestyle. But when he plans to boost an especially valuable painting, he targets a man who has headhunting skills of a different variety." That's the Netflix summary for "Headhunters" and all I knew about it before I watched it. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend not reading further than this paragraph because while there's no huge plot twist that if revealed will spoil a future viewing for you, the way "Headhunters" plays out from the second half of the film on is a big shock. So there's your warning.

This film, man oh man, this film. As the Netflix summary says, Roger Brown (imagine James Spader in Steve Buscemi's body) leads a double life as a corporate recruiter/art thief. We're introduced to him in a similar fashion as to Ed Norton's character in "Fight Club", with voice-over combined with stylish visuals. Brown is a bit of a scoundrel with a napoleon complex, overcompensating for his short stature (5'6'') by being an asshole to everyone he meets, including at times his tall, blond wife, Diana. Under the guise of interviewing prospective clients for jobs, he teases out if they own expensive paintings and whether a dog or wife is at home during the day, collecting information for future art robberies. He lives his life as if it were a game, never showing he cares, especially if it's regarding something he wants.

At the opening of Diana's new art gallery she introduces Roger to Clas Greve (played by f'n Jaime Lannister!), former CEO of a surveillance company, who has contacted her regarding a painting his grandmother left him. This painting (Rubens' "The Calydonian Boar Hunt"), long thought lost after being stolen by the Nazis in World War II could be worth upwards of 100 million dollars if Roger can get his hands on it. Fortunately he's headhunting for the rivals of Clas' former company and is able to get information about the Rubens under the false pretense of an interview. The theft goes down flawlessly with help from Roger's inside man at the home security company (who's also responsible for fencing the stolen art), but while leaving the scene of the crime, he's surprised to find Diana's cell phone left by Clas' bed. In response he sabotages the job offer to Clas and prepares to confront his wife, only to find that his fencer has yet to make the big sale, having been poisoned and left in the front seat of Roger's own car.

So it seems like "Headhunters" is setting itself up as a Hitchockian thriller (there's even a Bernard Herrmann-like score), with art theft, love triangles, and retaliatory murder, but instead things get f'n crazy. We've already learned that Clas originally got his job at the surveillance company because of his prior experience as an army commando known for his tracking skills so when the plot turns toward him hunting Roger using microscopic trackers it's not a huge surprise. What is, is how the film becomes a totally different film for the second half.

The tone continues to be semi-serious, but the plot begins to morph into more of a Coen Brothers-type black comedy with lots of quirky, sometimes gross set-pieces and then goes way past even them to the point where it's almost like Roger Brown got transported to a different move. Characters (and animals) die in unexpected, silly ways. Clas is a terminator, chasing Roger like if Wile E. Coyote actually knew what he was doing. Roger hides out in an incredibly deep port-a-potty, is trapped in a police car that gets rammed off a cliff by a mack truck, and is involved in a slow speed tractor chase. And it continues in that vein until we find just about everything and everyone we know is wrong. It's not a plot twist, it's a totally different film.

I respect the risks this film takes, but I have to say I stopped being along for the ride once everything became topsy-turvy. The world of the film is set up in a certain manner and Roger Brown, despite being an asshole is a character you identify with (at least I did). Once everything goes from zero to one thousand in the span of a few minutes, it's almost impossible to continue to care about the characters because it's like watching a cartoon. To the film's credit, there's no winking at the camera and everything is played relatively straight. And it's cool Norwegian filmmakers can be like F this, we're doing what we want, but I kept feeling like this is not what I signed up for. I do have to admit I enjoyed the film as a whole, and I can't get angry because "Headhunters" didn't go exactly the way I wanted. I wish more American films would try and pull off something as audacious as this. But the first half of the story sits there like an unfinished short story and I would have loved to see how it might have been wrapped up without changing everything completely.

Rating - 3.5 out of 5 stars

Random Thoughts -

One of the reasons I got so involved with the first section of "Headhunters" is because I love heist films. I can't get enough. Every time I see something like "Rififi" or "Le Cercle Rouge" or even something like "The Great Escape it makes me want to be part of a plan. I'm no criminal, but if I found out a bunch of my pals had some sort of scheme set up, I'd be all over that. I just have to decide whether I'm an explosives expert, master of disguise, or the guy who makes the mistake which gets us caught.

Despite being disappointed with the path this films takes, there are some great set-pieces in the second half of the film. There is a port-a-potty scene which overtakes "Trainspotting"'s as the grossest poop related thing I've ever seen in a movie. I can't imagine Norway actually has public toilets deep enough that you could immerse yourself completely in them. And I do admire how everything comes together in the end, with Roger using the same attention to detail he paid to stealing artwork to cleaning up the mess his life has become and defeating Clas.

The first clue Clas is not someone to mess with is when Roger spots a mess of mysterious scars on his back while changing after a friendly game of squash. It's what you'd imagine Batman's body must look like under the costume. I'd have forgotten about stealing from him right then and there.


Next - "The Last Picture Show" early Tuesday, November 6th (Before I vote).