08 January, 2013

‘Headhunters’ — Rearing Its Ugly Head

Original Title: Hodejegerne (2011)

The effete bellyacher, which we are supposed to endure as the protagonist, is embarrassed of its height (and perhaps “size”); the milksop has oodles of inferiority complex because its wife, Diana, is too good for it; it is also equivocal to her desire for procreation, which we are to sympathetically ascribe to its various dysfunctions. In a quick shift of scene, it is copulating with another woman (Lotte), whom it only treats as an object of concupiscence. It exploits and dismisses her as per its sick needs, yet the over-sensitive moral gurus raise no qualms over the pervert’s glorifications. We are supposed to accept, with compassion, that it behaves this way because of its inferiority complexes.

The director, Mortel Tyldum, instantly gets in the tempo. True to the title, he conducts an interview that examines the importance of reputation. We get a sense of profundity in the beginning. But in self-contradictory moral panic, Tyldum looses his clarity. The stench of putrid innards, packaged as an art thief, goes to rob a painting from a house. In a ludicrous change-of-heart moment, it sees children from the window and decides to have children; consequently, it abandons the robbery. But instead of absconding, it makes a phone-call to its wife to break the “good news”, right there. So, as per the director, procreation is the key to perpetual redemption.

We are supposed to root for this pantywaist dissembler, which despite having a fling with Lotte, gets in a moral rage when it stumbles upon its wife’s cell-phone at Clas Grave’s (played effortlessly by Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) house. We are to cheer for this ungainly rapscallion that obdurately refuses to take its dying crony to hospital. Of course, the director expects us to embrace the “shades of grey”, yet he gets moralistic with an utterly cheesy, saccharine sweet climax, accentuated by Diana’s pot belly.

Aksel Hennie is obviously an awful miscast. How could someone so ineffectual, with the appeal of coughed-up phlegm, be entrusted with this role: perhaps as a mascot to ward-off the evil eye? When it opens its mouth, you expect — at your impartial best — a grotesque, cartoonish voice. But you hear grating recitals of a bellyacher, trying to sound like a tough guy. But it’s just a lion of sand, a kick away from getting scattered.

In an attempt to evince its breed, this faecal sausage disguised as an actor, threatens to dismiss Clas Greve and render him unemployable. Its persona as an intimidating corporate magnate is a giggle. It gets downright laughable when the director tries to pass this rickety eyesore as a John Rambo and a James Bond-archetype who wrestles out of every peril laid out for him — herein a faecal sausage that refuses to flush down.

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