A cop-turned-hitman gets shot in the head and rendered comatose for 3 months. When he wakes up, his vision is (literally) upside-down, to match his skewed moral perspective. An obvious metaphor or a really cool one? In my topsy-turvy world, there's often no difference!

This is getting compared to Memento for its fractured (and sometimes confusing) chronology, which unlike in Memento has nothing to do with our hero's perception problem. That and some over-my-head philosophical overtones are only a small drag on the magnificent atmosphere, which makes me think of Jean-Pierre Melville crossed with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

I went in expecting a big dumb Thai action movie, but I can't imagine that would have been as satisfying as this.

Features a weird, useless gimmick that is eventually ignored once no one can figure out what to do with it, only to be reintroduced towards the end in a last ditch effort for pseudo profundity. So kind of the entire movie in a nutshell. Still, anything by Pen-ek can't be a complete waste. He's got a great eye and there's some not bad action. Just too bad this is coming after the great trifecta of Invisible Waves/Ploy/Nymph.

The premise is interesting and the first 30 minutes or so of this crime thriller are pretty intriguing and border on exciting. But it quickly goes down hill with really contrived dialogue dialogue and plot turns that feel like bad 90s film making.

The characters are somewhat engaging but the plot really starts to drag by the halfway point and the plot becomes too predictable and convenient.

tl;dr
First half = pretty great.
second half = really came close to walking out I was so bored.

A Thai film about an ex cop who becomes a hitman, taking out the supposed evil higher-ups in the world (politicians, businessman, etc.). This was honestly pretty bland which is a shame because I was really looking forward to it. The action was dull and the sloppy character development and dialogue did nothing to offset that. It was predictable and honestly pretty boring, treading absolutely no new ground whatsoever aside from giving the main character a ridiculous defect for, seemingly, the whole purpose of delivering some trite dialogue near the end of the film. It started out ok with a decent sequence showing how he got the defect, plus an ok flashback sequence with him and a prostitute, but it was all downhill after that. I think flashbacks are starting to get on my nerves, do you hear me JJ Abrams??!!?

Features a weird, useless gimmick that is eventually ignored once no one can figure out what to do with it, only to be reintroduced towards the end in a last ditch effort for pseudo profundity. So kind of the entire movie in a nutshell. Still, anything by Pen-ek can't be a complete waste. He's got a great eye and there's some not bad action. Just too bad this is coming after the great trifecta of Invisible Waves/Ploy/Nymph.

A cop-turned-hitman gets shot in the head and rendered comatose for 3 months. When he wakes up, his vision is (literally) upside-down, to match his skewed moral perspective. An obvious metaphor or a really cool one? In my topsy-turvy world, there's often no difference!

This is getting compared to Memento for its fractured (and sometimes confusing) chronology, which unlike in Memento has nothing to do with our hero's perception problem. That and some over-my-head philosophical overtones are only a small drag on the magnificent atmosphere, which makes me think of Jean-Pierre Melville crossed with Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

I went in expecting a big dumb Thai action movie, but I can't imagine that would have been as satisfying as this.

A disappointment considering that in his magnum opus, "Last Life in the Universe" (2003) Raganaruang was able to create a decent narrative that managed to hold together his good noir crime movie ideas and the main character's evolution. This time a time-jumping plot with unique visuality was too much for the very talented director and he forgot the importance of cohesive storytelling plus he wasn't careful with the ratios of the multiple timelines, which made the movie fall apart and unable to line up next to Memento or Collateral. When it comes to ratings and stars, it's halfway between The Limits of Control and Ghost Dog: definitely not a cult hitman movie, but an interesting take on the worn-out topic.

An average revenge thriller with an above average lead to elevate it to something better.

[C]

The film wants to be a film noir and uses all the elements for it, but it seems more to be a formal exercise than anything else. Everything is based on the atmosphere, atmosphere a bit overdone here. The sudden use of a subjective camera every now and then and the voice over don't seem to justify anything either. So, a quite disappointing film especially compare to his previous ones, such as Last Life in the Universe, Invisible Waves.

"Headshot" es un envolvente y atmosferico thriller con ecos de "Memento" y "Oldboy". La cinta es el viaje de un honesto policia que, a traves de diabolicos vuelcos en la trama, se convierte en un asesino sueldo y finalmente en un monje. Y aunque la narrativa es fragmentada en su cronologia, esta no resulta confusa y la cinta contiene un peso emocional.
"Headshot" es una estupenda propuesta de Tailandia que contiene una muy buena premisa y que es provocativa y violenta. Tambien les recomiendo la muy diferente "Last Life in the Universe" del director Pen-Ek Retanaruang.