SCANDINAVIAN THRILLERS

Scandinavia seems to have taken over the thriller genre in recent years. Airport bookshops are stuffed full of the Stieg Larsson trilogy, now made into three Swedish films and three forthcoming American ones. There's Wallander on T.V. in both Swedish and English. And Denmark's The Killing has become a cult, even down to detective Sarah Lund's Faroe Island sweater.

Now comes Norwegian Jo Nesbø. I haven't read any of his books, though they also litter Stansted Airport's bookshop. The new film Headhunters, the first of his books to be filmed, premiered earlier this year, and has now come to the local cinema. I went up to see it last night with my wife and daughter.

I have to say that it wasn't very good. Unlike all the other thrillers mentioned above, which are all about slow-moving plots in various parts of the far north, Headhunters tries to be both a thriller and a comedy. That's not normally a winning combination (think back to Beverly Hills Cop), and it isn't here either. They should have dropped the comedy bits and made it just a thriller. Scandinavian thrillers travel well, but Scandinavian comedy doesn't. 

Walter Blotscher