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Headhunters

Headhunters (2012)

tomatometer

92

Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 90
Fresh: 83 | Rotten: 7

Grisly, twisty, and darkly comic, Headhunters is an exhilaratingly oddball take on familiar thriller elements.

83

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 23
Fresh: 19 | Rotten: 4

Grisly, twisty, and darkly comic, Headhunters is an exhilaratingly oddball take on familiar thriller elements.

audience

86

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 17,388

My Rating

Movie Info

Headhunters stars the talented Aksel Hennie (Max Manus) as Roger, a charming scoundrel and Norway's most accomplished headhunter. Roger is living a life of luxury well beyond his means, and stealing art to subsidize his expensive lifestyle. When his beautiful gallery owner wife introduces him to a former mercenary in the possession of an extremely valuable painting, he decides to risk it all to get his hands on it, and in doing so discovers something which makes him a hunted man. Headhunters is

Aug 28, 2012

$1.2M

Magnolia Pictures

All Critics (90) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (83) | Rotten (7) | DVD (1)

"Headhunters" is an absurd amount of grisly fun, which is a good thing, since, looked at in any great detail, it probably doesn't hold up all that well.

June 28, 2012 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | Comment
Arizona Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

By film's end, we're deep into Coen brothers territory, with an extra splash of Sam Raimi-level gore.

May 31, 2012 Full Review Source: Miami Herald | Comment
Miami Herald
Top Critic IconTop Critic

'Headhunters" is a frighteningly well-made thriller about an amoral art thief on the run.

May 24, 2012 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

"Headhunters" is a bit like an Ikea desk assembled with your nondominant arm -- sleek and attractive, but likely to fall to pieces if you look at it too hard.

May 18, 2012 Full Review Source: Newsday | Comments (6)
Newsday
Top Critic IconTop Critic

"Headhunters" will indeed hand you your head.

May 18, 2012 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A cat-and-mouse game with the giddy excitement of a heist movie.

May 11, 2012 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This film is filled with suspense, violence, duplicity and emotion. The plot has a number of interesting twists. It is a very gritty thriller.

November 27, 2012 Full Review Source: Laramie Movie Scope | Comment
Laramie Movie Scope

Though not completely satisfying or believable, the absurd cat-and-mouse potboiler at least is always entertaining and biting doggy style.

November 23, 2012 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

[A]n insane thriller in which form easily trumps -- while still complementing -- the material's inherent madness.

October 13, 2012 Full Review Source: Mark Reviews Movies | Comment
Mark Reviews Movies

A hugely enjoyable, unpredictable thriller that never forgets to be fun first and foremost.

September 28, 2012 Full Review Source: TheShiznit.co.uk | Comment
TheShiznit.co.uk

"Headhunters" is a rather strange film, but it's also a rather entertaining one.

September 14, 2012 Full Review Source: Examiner.com | Comment
Examiner.com

Headhunters (Hodejegerne) is a roiling Norwegian mix of Hitchcock and Wile E. Coyote, with a generous dose of feces and blood. Headhunters is a mind game. And a blood sport.

June 14, 2012 Full Review Source: tonymacklin.net | Comment
tonymacklin.net

... sort of like being mugged by a banshee: It's all very loud and exciting and after it's over you're left with a vague feeling of unease to go along with the lighter wallet.

June 8, 2012 Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Comment
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The film holds its twists too close to the chest, and there's little to chew on till the ambitiousness of its plotting is revealed late in the film.

June 1, 2012 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle

a twisted and twisting take on the potentially lethal outcomes of male ego and insecurity, which find their greatest embodiment in capitalism at its most aggressive

May 29, 2012 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | Comment
Q Network Film Desk

Sleek and relentless, it's a provocative, darkly comedic thriller.

May 25, 2012 Full Review Source: SSG Syndicate | Comment
SSG Syndicate

Suspenseful, wickedly funny and clever, Headhunters offers more bang for your buck than most modern crime thrillers.

May 25, 2012 Full Review Source: NYC Movie Guru | Comment
NYC Movie Guru

"Headhunters" isn't a pretty film, and it doesn't always entirely make sense, but it races along like a man chased by killers.

May 24, 2012 Full Review Source: Seattle Times | Comment
Seattle Times

The good guy in the Norwegian "Headhunters" looks like a bad guy, and the bad guy looks like a good guy. And that's just one of the ways this dazzling movie messes with us.

May 24, 2012 Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | Comment
St. Paul Pioneer Press

HEADHUNTERS is an exhilarating thriller with great visual flare, top notch acting, and a story that will have you so involved that you'll possibly have no fingernails by the end of it!

May 24, 2012 Full Review Source: Sin Magazine | Comment
Sin Magazine

Like a Teutonic techno band, this thriller is both skillfully familiar and chillingly strange.

May 18, 2012 Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Comment
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Audience Reviews for Headhunters

The term "action thriller" has deteriorated ever so nastily from what it meant decades ago. Back in the twentieth century, the genre was laudable for its intoxicating ability to mold suspense with grit. Nowadays, good ol' Hollywood has taken charge of the genre, and withered it down to nothing but a pile of special effects and corny jokes, only enjoyable with a few buckets of popcorn handy. Although Headhunters would have still been a stunning cell from the mind of a genius back in the late '70s or early '80s, it's manna from heaven during this era. The film is Norwegian, but who's to say that Norway doesn't know how to bring us back to the time when "edge-of-your-seat thrills" were self-explanatory?
October 20, 2012
spielberg00
Alexander Diminiano

Super Reviewer

A slick and wickedly entertaining edge of your seat thriller, it`s exciting and constantly surprising and will trick you every step of the way. A spectacular thrill-ride that pulls you in like you wouldnt believe. It`s tense, taunt and loaded with riveting drama and explosive action. One of the coolest, sharpest and most stylish crime films of the year. An energetic and full-throttle cat and mouse game with all the great elements of a heist movie that has plenty of hard-boiled twist and turns. It will blow you away with its plot, style and witt. A stunningly well-done film. Director, Morten Tyldum crafts a superb masterwork. The characters are complex and compelling and well performend by the cast. Askell Hennine is electrifying. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is brilliant. The two leads work well with one another and square off nicely. A bold. bloody and frighteningly great roller-coaster ride of a suspense thriller. An utterly thrilling and wickedly fun adrenaline-rush. A tremendously cool and truly satisfying crowd pleaser.
July 8, 2012
allan913

Super Reviewer

    1. Roger Brown: Sounds like something from a movie.
    – Submitted by Chris P (7 months ago)
    1. Roger Brown: We have a mark.
    – Submitted by Chris P (7 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Headhunters (DE)
  • Headhunters (Hodejegerne) (UK)
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