Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak

I liked this movie.. I know it was a big deal back in Turkey, since it had a soap opera and all but I didn't have any knowledge about that when I watched the movie. If you think this movie is anti-semitic or brings up the issue of raising anti-American spirit, I'd like to remind you the midnight express movie. Americans shall be as well very familiar with the effect of a wrong assumption/judge-mental movie... You see it here in the United States every day, on TV, on movies and etc. I don't understand what is the big deal when another country does the same to the US? We should have the same criterion's for any movie not depending on their nationality but their qualifications. So overall, I suggest this movie not only because it is a perception of another culture also because it is a fun adventure type movie..

I loved the TV series and I liked this movie. It is provocative and very real also. We finally see the real side of the U.S. and their twisted politics. I love seeing Americans lose. I love Polat Alemdar and 24/7 serious face. I think I will watch the TV series after this movie. 7/10

Most German newspapers (e.g. www.spiegel.de) said the film is anti-American, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and is bad because it deepens the existing "culture clash" even more.

I don't agree. Well, of course the movie is one-sided. With a single exception the Americans in the movie are unscrupulous, dead-heartened and bloodthirsty. They humiliate people of other countries/cultures/religion, don't care about deaths of innocent civilians, maltreat prisoners, etc. Of course most Americans are not like this, but as we know from the pictures and videos from Abu Ghureib and from several other incidents, most of these things did really happen. Why should it be not allowed to show these things in a movie? One scene remind me strongly of holocaust movies: captives are transported on a long journey in a container on a truck. One guard says to the other: they might suffocate in the container because there is no fresh air supply. The truck stops, the (American) guard gets off the truck and fires with an automatic gun hundreds of bullet-holes into the container and creates a bloodbath among the captives. Well, if a holocaust movie shows German Nazis committing terrible things, I don't object too. OK, I don't really know if something like this container incident did really happen in Iraq, but we know that many bad enough things did actually happen.

There are interesting scenes e.g. where a sheik stops some fanatists from executing an American journalist and confronts them with facts why this has nothing to do with Islam, or another one where he discusses with suicide bombers why their plans are wrong.

This movie can help us understand how many Turkish, Arabic or Muslim people feel and think. It is provocative, one-sided, and mixes historic truth with fiction in a questionable way. However isn't that a good starting point for discussing these issues? Sometimes provocation is necessary to get people start talking. First we need to learn to talk about our own feelings. Then we can talk to each other. It's not very healthy if the political correctness keeps telling us to not talk about what we really think and feel just because it could violate other peoples feelings.

After being the top TV series of Turkey for many years, Kurtlar Vadisi (Valley of the Wolves) now appears as a cinema film. Year 1996 was a break stone in Turkish cinema history, in which Eskiya (The Bandit) was seen by more than one million people, which could be counted a very high number for that time. People started to revise their opinions about the national cinema. After Eskiya, high-budget movies followed, being seen by millions of people, and giving out the signs that Turkey was in fact a really profitable country for film-making, if the needs of the people were analyzed well. The result of the analysis is simple: People would pay for the movies if they knew the cast from television. Good or bad, every movie having its basis on TV worked well on the screen. Kurtlar Vadisi Irak will do good on the screen, without any doubt, for the same reason. However, there is a difference now. The movie is based on the characters from the series, but the story is completely different. It zooms in the war in Iraq, with a different subjectivity than the American one. The makers of the movie could base the story on the mafia events that the viewers of the TV series were used to, but they took a risk and carried the war to the screen. Billy Zane appears in the movie, which will take the attention of international viewers. Time will show, if the movie is going to be a success out of Turkey, but we can say, it has simply guaranteed the top in Turkey.

Finally someone made something different then what we always use to see from Hollywood, The Americans use to be always the one who save the world and always the goods the winners, before was movies about Vietnam, they use to be the bad ones and then the Russians, one American man fighting against all the Russian army (Rambo) and now who else the Arabs ? If they have the right to show to the whole world that Viet army is bad and Russians too so whats wrong with this Kurtlar Vadisi... First time someone made something different then Hollywood use to show us always and now they become a shame ? I don't see any shame in this movie, it was a good movie i enjoyed there is some truth and some fiction in it but at least its not Rambo ;) more realistic then that...Open your eyes people!