For a long time this was one of the movies on my 'to watch' list. After hearing lots of praise, seeing the high rating and reading a few of the reviews, here on IMDB, I thought this might be a solid thriller. Additionally, the expected credit for 'Headhunters' was form the fact that this is not a Hollywood movie.A huge surprise (and a let down) waited for me and my wife as we were watching the movie. It turned out to be anything but a solid thriller. More like stupid or idiotic.It actually started very promising. An art thief living an extravagant lifestyle, who also works as a recruiter and is able to take the advantage of it. So for the first 20-30 minutes we were hooked. Then things took a turn in a different direction and had the Cohen - Lynch type of absurdity, being extremely dumb. Some of them were so dumb type of funny, but mostly just dumb. Needless to say that the interesting ideas presented in the beginning were lost or forgotten.The mentioned comparison to Cohen brothers or Lynch is purely in the absurd way the film progresses but in no way I would compare it to their work. I find the material of the former (at least the early one like Miller's Crossing) to be smart while the latter is weird, creepy but nonetheless very beautiful. I have never seen any of them going so low on the 'jokes' as it was done in 'Headhunters'.To sum it up, I was extremely disappointed with the movie. While I can't blame the director (or anything else in the production for that matter) for stupidity since this was intentional, I definitely wouldn't have watched the movie had I the slightest idea of what's to come. This isn't the smart, tension driven thriller I hoped it could be.

An alright thriller with two truly great scenes.1. Roger burying himself in all the fecal matter at the bottom of a porta potty, using the cardboard of the toilet paper roll as a breathing hole.2. The twist of whether or not his wife was trying to kill him. In the garage when he finds the dead body of his security helper buddy in his car and then his wife comes out to check on him...damn what a situation for both of them to be in. It was fun and nerve-wracking watching both of them trying to guess what the other knows.Great stuff there, though the rest is just OK. Short man gets his hot wife and saves the day and all is forgotten and forgiven. Who knew that getting married meant your wife actually loves you? Who knew she meant it when she said she wants kids?

I was intrigued by the premise of the movie and the clearly flawed and complicated but somehow hopeful character of Roger. I also loved that it was Norwegian (I'm American) and all of the Nordic characters, scenes and themes.However, for me, about 30 minutes into the movie it took a few sharp detours and I ended up not really knowing what I was watching. I could not possibly see how the later scenes followed from the earlier scenes, they seemed completely incongruous. The characters began to behave completely irrationally, I guess motivated by some background that we were never told about or something, I was lost.There were many extremely graphic scenes, I guess you can't really get away from the graphic violence these days in any suspenseful movie but I thought they were just way over the top and took me out of the story.I began to lose interest about 2/3 through but did manage to finish, and the ending tied up the story in such wildly implausible tying-of-knots that I literally laughed out loud.I'll definitely watch for the actors again and look forward to seeing other Nordic themed movies. Hopefully they can show some restraint with the gore next time.

Most of the people would be septic when they hear it's a Norwegian movie but Hodejegerne (or Headhunters) will prove them wrong. It's an excellent crime thriller with a lot of twists that keep you in suspense and entertained until the last second. I wish they would make more movies of this quality. Much better then most of the American high budget movies in this genre. Aksel Hennie plays Roger Brown, the headhunter and art thief, and does it brilliantly. Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau as Clas Greve might be better known as Jamie Lannister in Game of Thrones but here he proves he can act in whatever movie. In fact all actors did a great job. The movie might start slow but after a while you get sucked into the story and can't wait to see what's coming. I really enjoyed this one.