At the first Tribeca Film Festival I ever went to this was playing, but due to time restraints I missed it. Now, being like most films I've reviewed, I didn't see the trailer and only read a synopsis and saw the poster, I was expecting an Asian based action movie. What you end up getting though is a noir styled film which has a slightly intriguing story which may lose you at times.
Characters & Story
Tul (played by Nopachai Chaiyanam) is a cop who discovers, during an investigation, a government official's brother has criminal ties. So, said government official tries to bribe Tul to keep his mouth shut. This doesn't work so they use a young girl named Tiwa (played by Chanokporn Sayoungkul) to seduce him, and pretend to be dead, and with this they try to blackmail him into submission, but all that ends up happening is he assaults their middle man negotiator, and ends up in jail for a few years.
Thus leading to him meeting a man offering him the opportunity to work as a vigilante of sorts. In such a position, rather than enforce the rules and prosecute in the inadequate way, he would instead take out the scum who slip through the cracks. At first he isn't for this idea but, upon Tiwa's death and the cops' ambivalence to it, he decides to take the position. From there, we are lead on a journey, partly, fueled by revenge and also partly fueled by a sense that the current system doesn't work and he (Tul) is fixing the wrongs of the world. Thing is, when you kill one person you effect many others, and with one man's death he becomes the hunted leading us to watch him on the other side of the gun and running for his life.
Praise
For me, the overall story was quite intriguing and though the action scenes were often a bit too dark, what could be seen seemed to be good. Outside of that, there isn't really much to praise.
Criticism
One technique I will always dislike is when a film jumps from past to present, back to past, and then to present again. And while Headshot does note when it does go back in time, I did feel sometimes it wasn't consistent with this, so at times I was left wondering when in Tul's life we were. Also, as noted, probably the big draw for the film are the action sequences, of which there isn't anything over the top done, so they are often run of the mil. But, to me, what was perhaps the biggest issue is that the story may have good moments, but often times characters come and leave Tul's life to the point where it is hard to pin a face and name down to somebody before they end up dying or just disappearing for anywhere from 20-30 minutes.
Overall: Skip It
It took me awhile to finish Headshot and that was solely due to me losing interest in the film multiple times. For, with the movie being nearly 2 hours long, there just isn't a strong enough story, nor entrancing enough action, to really keep you interested. And mind you, no one is a bad actor in the film, but at the same time, being that this is a noir, you do begin to feel like the standard of acting should be better, and it never reaches that point. Hence why I say to skip it. For though it does have an interesting poster and trailer, somewhere down the line the film just becomes another action film which tries to be deep at times, but ends up lost in translation.
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