Headhunters

directed by Morten Tyldum (2011)

My first impression with this film was geez, this is ripe for a remake with Tom Cruise as the greedy art thief.

My second impression?  I didn't think much of the set up.  It's got a corporate headhunter, (Aksel Hennie), who steals and sells art work, because he's got to keep up with the beyond his means lavish lifestyle his blonde trophy wife is accustomed to.  He's a pragmatic, amoral, sort,  and his art thieving is not much different from his day job where he looks for executives to poach, usually stealing them out from under the employ of one corporation for another.  The relative poverty driving the artwork snatch and sell sidejob, is not a situation most people can relate to; "Oh no I can't afford the payments on my luxury mansion or luxury car!"  Actually a whole lot of people can relate to not being able to afford the lifestyle they have,  it's just that the lifestyle he felt he needed to maintain was a bit much.

As the plot unspooled I was feeling all sneery about seeing another story about rich white people, and thinking, "fuck these greedy resource pigs and their stupid money problems!",  because greed and lavish lifestyles like you see at the upper echelons of society, rather than impressing me, more tends to disgust me. Excessively excessive is just plain fucked up.  The other day a friend was telling me about a guy who renovated his G5 jet so all the surfaces were gold plated or marble.  He spent x amount of dollars, untold millions, I guess, and for what?  So his JET was shiny?

Jesus.  Of course it's Donald Trump's jet.

The movie got better though.  It's got good heists with twisty drama, and what I appreciated most, aside from the great cinematography, was the moral thread running through it. The protagonist is interesting too.  He's vulnerable; his narration reveals his weaknesses,  and that's what got me to liking him.  The movie had been hyped to me though, so it took me awhile before my expectations wound down and I got into it for what it was - a well shot action/crime story with some characters growing.   Near to the beginning,  I turned to my guy and said, I don't LIKE anybody in this film.  They're all selfish fucks.  Pretty standard character types for noir type works, but this one also has some redemptive realistic qualities in the characters, except when it comes to the antagonist, (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).  He was a little too much of a phony baloney, comic book, super soldier, spy guy, human monster, stereotype for my taste.  Still, all criticism aside, it was a good ride, and I liked how it ended.

I think in the remake, they'll do it from the perspective of the bad guy and have him triumph, because greed is still good in the eyes of the majority of the haves making media in America.