Hodejegerne (Morten Tyldum, 2011)

Based on the novel by Jo Nesbø, Norway's answer to Henning Mankell et al, Headhunters presents one of the business variety, who also has to subsidise his wife's lifestyle by moonlighting as a fine art burglar. He is at first sight a cold fish, insecure and arrogant, but other layers come out as he bites of more than he can chew by stealing from a corporate alpha shark who also happens to have been a headhunter of the special ops kind, and his life rapidly goes to hell in a handcart. There is a graveyard humour at work, but also a growing and plausible empathy with the weaselly lead, excellently portrayed by Aksel Hennie, even as the situation gets progressively more nightmarish. You'd never have believed at the start you'd end up rooting for the hapless anti-hero.

7/10