ulnoyman

Erdogan reestablishes himself as a good filmmaker once again with the first Christmas movie ever in the history of Turkish Cinema. The theme and setting is a not-too-subtle but still very clever reflection of the torn-culture of contemporary Turkey. The whole irony is summed up with the scene where Erdogan in a Santa costume greets other Santas with a nonchalant "Selamaleykum".

Unlike his previous movies, Erdogan does not work with the veteran cast of the BKM troupe. Most of the roles big and small are filled with the youngsters- who give solid performances under a solid direction.

"Neseli Hayat" is a good, heart-warming story with invaluable insights and observations of modern Turkish society, and you should see it before a big Hollywood action flick squeezes it out of your local theatre.

When I posted a review of A.R.O.G. a couple years ago I wrote that "Cem Yilmaz is financing his future good movie with a bad one". Judging by the pattern he followed until that day, I hoped that his next movie would a good one such as "Hokkabaz" or "Hersey Cok Güzel Olacak"... I was wrong.

Despite the wonderful visual effects, impeccable decor and costume, electrifying music, and so many other technical achievements worthy of praise, the movie is ultimately a bad one. The screenplay is too long and inflated with so many witless jokes. It is formulaic, repetitive and unoriginal. It is basically G.O.R.A. (or A.R.O.G.) in the wild west. Turkish comedy should outgrow fart-jokes, accent-abuse and overused unsubtle cross-culture references.

Even the decor has problems, since there is a nylon American flag in Sheriff Lloyd's office, and poker is played with plastic chips. After all that attention to detail, stuff like that ruins everything.

The fact that the movie is a lengthy commercial for a cola drink is also disturbing.

One clever thing Cem Yilmaz did with the script is to make it a story told by a shifty-eyed antique dealer. That saves him from a whole lot of criticism. Maybe if he had hired a professional screenplay doctor from Hollywood instead of a visual effects artist, the movie would be a much better one.

Before watching this movie I considered myself a fan of Ezel Akay and liked everything he was involved in creatively. "Neredesin Firuze" and "Karagöz ve Hacivat Neden Öldürüldü" were among my favorite movies. He seemed to get better with every project - that is until this disorganized flop.

"7 Kocali Hürmüz" is a well-known Turkish musical loved by generations. This 2009 remake is unworthy of it. This movie actually butchers, vandalizes, oversimplifies, and simply ruins that memory with awful acting, badly designed decor and costumes, but mostly with of a horrible screenplay riddled with witless lumpen humor.

There are so many things to criticize in the movie, but still being a fan of Akay, I will cut it short and hope that he would learn from this debacle to get back on the right track. I suspect that his failure is partly caused by the creative involvement of Cem Özer and Nurgül Yesilcay, who are the pushers of the project.