Arif V 216

First of all, I'm a big fan of Cem Yilmaz and his movies. I still watch his movies at least once a year. That being said, while not being completely bad, this movie didn't meet the standards of Cem Yilmaz movies. He set the bar really high and sometimes it's not easy to reach there, even for himself.

Nostalgia factor played a big role in this new adventure of our beloved "Arif Isik", a character first introduced in G.O.R.A. Cem Yilmaz obviously loves nostalgia, and the great actors and actresses of 60's, 70's era just like most Turkish people, but the dose of it in this movie was way too much. I mean, the setting, background, costumes, characters were really great but that "These people were giants of the Turkish cinema, so they should not be made fun of" attitude was kind of boring, especially considering that this is a comedy movie. Especially the tirade at the end of the movie was really lame.

You should be familiar with the history of Turkish cinema in order to be able to enjoy this movie. There are just way too many references to that 60's, 70's era for anyone to even laugh at the jokes. So, don't bother watching the movie if you don't know who people like Zeki Müren, Sadri Alisik, Ajda Pekkan are.

Ben cok begendim tavsiye ederim. Devaminin gelmesi temennisiyle...

If you are a non-Turkish moviegoer, most of this movie might make no sense at all. For the uninitiated, it's just another sci-fi comedy revolving around an odd couple who goes back to the past and messes everything up hilariously. However, for a Turkish person, it is full of references to black-and-white melodramatic movies, colorful yet still melodramatic musicals and so forth. In addition, Arif and 216 are already well-known and much-liked by the Turkish audience from their previous roles in GORA and AROG.

The movie uses many cliches of old Turkish films by twisting or combining them in a weird way to create comedy plots. And, it is clear that particularly Sadri Alisik has a special place for Cem Yilmaz, because the film heavily borrows themes and stroylines from his works.

It's a solid 5 for the internationals and 7 for the Turkish audience.

I just watched the film, I have to say, it suits its purpose perfectly. I will try to analyze it as I can but I have to say, people who criticize it here, really are bad at it. Either they don't understand CEM YILMAZ and they don't know his style or they are just so bad at reviewing films, this is just one of them. This review will not have any spoilers.

It started slowly at the beginning, I think it was just for preparing the audience for the story behind it. It's not a movie that you will continue watching after the first 10 min, but it builds up afterward. The story is normally, in my opinion, would be boring if someone else did it. It had so much good referring and pointings, only the people who know about them would notice. So, It's not for everyone in that sense. In some scenes, I laughed pretty hard. Not because of the jokes but because of the way the film is moving and because of the abnormalities that are shown in the film. It was processed so well that it would give an expression as if a "Turkish" guy would do this, this would be the way he would do it. It crashes the cliches of Holywood with cliches in Turkish Culture. So, people who don't see this or find this funny might seem this is another cliche. It was actually entertaining.

Most of the people should understand, CEM YILMAZ uses his stories to make people laugh in his stand-ups and in the film industry he uses his imagination and creativity and blending it with Turkish Culture. So, ofcourse expecting it to be like in stand up shows, you will end up not understanding him and his movies. Eventually, you would think that they are not funny, therefore. My suggestion, just let it go all of your expectations and wishes and enjoy a different perspective. I think people can't enjoy because they forgot their own cultures or they are ashamed of it.

About the fight scenes and their qualities, the graphics etc. : It's perfectly normal that they are not that good. It's not a holywood film and we have seen too much before that we are not realizing, in the Turkish film industry, this is better than gold.

I have seen some people saying the speech on the last scene was meh... It is his style. It's not the first time he did it and I don't think it will be the last time. In my personal opinion, it shows where he comes from. It shows how sincere he is when he does his thing. I enjoyed every minute of the movie. Congratz...

If you want unterstand this film you must watch G.O.R.A. and A.R.O.G.