Vale dos Lobos

It's actually surprisingly slick for a Turkish movie, considering it's also part of an ongoing TV series, kinda like their "24".

The Good:

The actors all did well, and I'm surprised to see so many real American actors, including Busey and Zane in such a blatantly anti-war movie. The music The cinematography The editing The special effects

The Bad:

The production design is cheap by movie standards. The US military uniforms are not very believable and many of the US soldiers speak with thick accents (especially the jailer at Abu Ghraib). The plot is not believable, with the four Turkish special forces guys taking out a LOT of American G.I.'s at the climax. The US soldiers are shown to be cartoonishly evil - one guy even kills one of his own men for threatening to tell on him for killing some Iraqi civilians! Gary Busey as a Jewish Doctor harvesting organs to send to the West - a bit far fetched.

As ludicrous as it gets, this movie is a real eye-opener to how the Islamic world sees us. The war is controversial and polarizing here, just like this movie and most Americans are gonna love it or hate it long before they actually watch it. I liked it. One almost never sees an American (non-documentary) movie with the guts to be so completely one-sided, especially when our questionable foreign policy is involved. US soldiers as the bad guys, led by a fanatical Christian zealot, is definitely not something one sees every day. This movie is kinda like THE OMEGA CODE 2 turned on its head. Between the bad and the good, VALLEY OF THE WOLVES: IRAQ at least never fails to be entertaining.

A commando of Turkish intelligence agents enter Irak to avenge a real life episode in the war where Turkish soldiers were arrested and blindfolded by American troops. A very good action film, condemned unseen by many in the west, it represents at least a change of pace by showing the Muslims as the good guys and the Americans as the bad guys. The movie is actually very strongly against terrorism (the Sheikh in the movie criticizes the terrorists who wants to behead an American journalist, and prevents this from happening) but is also against American ignorant meddling in the Middle East. Most of all, though, Valley of the Wolves is a terrific action movie. And Billy Zane - who has apologized to the American press for appearing in this film - has actually one of the best performances in his career as a real meanie.

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!

As mentioned before here somewhere, there is a true hysteria on going in Europe about this movie, which i don't understand at all. Why is it, that people get up now and denunciate the content. What is wrong with them guys ? I mean Hollywood produced Bullsh.. for years, and told so called "true" stories one-sided and no one ever said a word about their manipulative policy. Russians have been showed bad and evil for years, then the Japanese, then the Arabian world and it always was OK. Who says, the good guys are always American ? Who says justice is being made by stars'n'stripes ? Once Oliver Stone dragged a whole country and its people in the mud and every consumer thought, ooohhh yeah, so this is what Turkey is about. And when the Turks complained about that movie, Hollywood's answer was: Hey, it's just a movie. Don't take serious. Exact the same thing word, is what I'm saying now: Hey, it's only Showbiz !!! But back to the movie.

Valley of Wolves sure has some lacks in professionalism but what has to be said: the movie is thrilling. Besides the American actors, which are chosen very well, the Turkish ones have some work to do to take place in the higher class. But of course, there are also very touching moments, like the Hospital visit from the main character. The special and action effects are not bad but are too limited in its volume to be really spectacle.

I think it is a solid action movie and for once told from the other side than the usual "hero saves the world" stuff.

cheers.

The making itself is not that great as most viewers have said. However, the action is entertaining enough. But I think what is more important is the subject of the movie. I'm glad that someone is finally has the gut to make a movie on the real injustice that committed by the America. It's amazing how many narrow minded people actually refuse to accept the truth about US army in Iraq. The massacre of civilian by US solder has already been reported by Time magazine and now the US defend department finally bowed to public pressure to investigate. Here's a report by US newspaper so no more arguments about the fact behind this movie. www.registerguard.com /news /2006 /05 /20 /a3.nat.iraqprobe.0520.p1.php?section=nation_world. (you need to remove the spaces in between to form a valid url)

I just hope we have a real hero like in the movie as well.