Pun Salad

Stieg Larsson's posthumous success with the Girl series has opened up the field for Scandinavian crime thrillers. This Norwegian movie is based on a novel by Jo Nesbø and it's pretty good.

Roger Brown makes a decent living as a corporate headhunter. But he's insecure—really—about his height and maintaining his beautiful, much taller wife in an expensive lifestyle. So, with the help of a confederate placed in a security service, he's turned to a side career as an art thief.

A risky choice! And Roger finds that even the occasional Munch lithograph theft can't keep up with his budget for spousal maintenance. But he hears that a recent hiring prospect has possession of a long-lost Rubens original work. That could be the big score that would set him up for life! But, as it turns out, it just sinks him rapidly into a horrific tale of murder, betrayal, and totally implausible technology. The pale Norwegian body count keeps going up.

Rated R for "bloody violence including some grisly images, strong sexual content and [mostly pale Norwegian] nudity." The MPAA rating doesn't mention a particularly disgusting (albeit non-gory) scene that had both Mrs. Salad and I averting our sensitive eyes. But it's fun and well-crafted, with unexpected plot twists and some bits of very dark comedy.