Bringing on the gore.
Headshot is from the same team that brought The Raid and The Raid II, and here we have a similar film. Iko Uwais returns, this time playing Ishmael—a man with no memory. A young doctor finds Ishmael after he is shot in the head (get the title?) and helps him recover. It is made clear really quick that Ishmael is a major badass with some serious trouble looking for him.
As always, the fight scenes are top notch from this team. Great choreography and camerawork make these scenes soar above most other action movies. The plot is paper thin, and really if I explain any of it I will be giving away too much. To speak broadly, it tries to be something more than what it is, and it suffers for it.
Issues of memory and morality are teased, but never really discussed. The dialogue and plot work more as brief breaks between the fights, and the on/off of each genre makes the film seem deeply unbalanced. Sure, some of the parts of interesting, but put together it becomes a bit messy. The film clocks in at over two hours, and that is a bit much.
Aside from the thin plot, the fight scenes do get a little exhausting. The latter half of the film stacks them directly on top of each other, and there is a point where it becomes repetitive. For fans of the Raid series that are thirsty for more, this is probably worth watching. For newcomers to the genre, I would suggest going back to the original stuff from the team.
Individual moments in this film are brilliant. Some of the camera tricks, (like how the hell did they get it out of the bus?), show great promise. There is nothing new here, but some of it is done well. 5/10
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