Beware of short guys with Napoleon complexes. They’re paranoid and neurotic, and will stab you in the back if need be. Take Roger Brown, the 5-foot-6 antihero of the tense and twisted Norwegian thriller “Headhunters.” He owns a lavish house, a snazzy car and has a mistress and a trophy wife, Diana, a lanky blonde with a killer bod who towers over her insecure mate.
By day, Roger (Aksel Hennie) is a notorious headhunter for Oslo corporations. But even his handsome salary isn’t enough for his lifestyle, and he’s going broke. So he moonlights as an art thief, breaking into clients’ houses, taking expensive pieces of art and leaving replicas in their place. Enter Clas, a potential recruit from a rival corporation who is having an affair with Diana (Synnove Macody Lund), and Roger’s life is turned inside out.
Director Morten Tyldum’s film watches as Roger goes from smug, arrogant yuppie to a hunted man driving a tractor while covered from head to toe with human excrement. (It’s not a pleasant sight, I must tell you.) The sex, nudity and violence are nonstop, but that’s what makes “Headhunters” exciting entertainment. See it before the Hollywood remake, possibly starring Mark Wahlberg, gets it all wrong.