User reviews

This is good, light-hearted quasi-thriller (?) that succeeds without really trying to, or may be succeeds because it does not try too hard. Director Sorak seems to get the right lessons from the mistakes in G.O.R.A., or may be he fares better since 'Sinav' (The Exam) is his own project. Editing is better, seamless and fascinating. Turkish directors in general, Sorak included, are getting better and better at controlling the tempo lately.

The movie is about a small circle of friends, all high-school students under the stress of the approaching annual nationwide university entrance exam. They decide to ease their way by stealing the questions of the exam at all costs, even if they had pay thousands of bucks to hire a double-o-seven type.

The mixture of experienced and young actors do a good job with believable performances, they look and act real, even when things seem to go absurd for a while. It even has Jean-Claude Van Damme in a small but important cameo role to garnish. Any high kicks? well, one... kinda.

Turkish cinema produces about 25-30 movies a year - This one is one of the several that are actually worth watching.

Good directed movie, you can enjoy every moment. Above Turkish standards of its time, good story, good cinematography, acting is well enough. I am guessing non watchers have voted for the movie.

We have watched Sinav with young people in Khalkedon. Sinav gives a priority to young people's problems. One of the most important problems is education and Grand University Exam. The question asked in the film that is possible to measure the performance with one exam? As a main basis horse race was given in the movie.

Ruya Onal is excellent; we can see her movies in soon. Jean-Claude Van Damme was not suit in his role. If he would played, we should have seen much more action scenes. Other players were average. Some characters, some typical pronunciation sticks to the player. We see Kadir Copdemir with same sort of character.

The director tried to bring velocity to the movie by accelerating scenes. However for the velocity we need much more peculiarities.

The movie is not bad on the whole; at least it gives us valuable clues about life itself.

I had seen scenes from this movie from the clip of Nil Karaibrahimgil's song, I was curious. There was also veteran action actor JCVD. As a movie, it's an average movie, but what it wanted to tell was good.

After having seen this movies I was surprised because it was beyond my expectations.I was expecting a film with some poor jokes and little nice jokes but it was an interesting experience to see that the film has got good humorous parts.More than this the level of drama is perfect,in one scene it makes you laugh and in the coming scene you can cry so it's really hard to mix these so perfectly in a film.

What made really excited is the level of quality of direction in this movie.I know the music clips and other films of this director (Ö.Faruk Sorak who also directed G.O.R.A.) and I always liked his style,maybe he doesn't bring a new kind of direction style to the world but I think he can make the best direction in Turkey.Although I live in Europe I don't like the European style movies and I always like to see good action sees with a good scenario and this goal is achieved perfectly by this director.

Although the superiority of this film for a Turkish person I don't think it can make the same impact in Europe or United States because the film tells you a story which makes real deep wounds (I'm not joking,the wounds are really deep!) in Turkish young people.I think after the great Hababam Sinifi; movies (the old ones with Kemal Sunal,etc.) this is the only film that can take to high school ages' memories.

And the last words...It's 9/10 and It's not 10/10 because of its ending...It gives real good advices to the life but when the film finishes you leave the theater with some questions in your mind but maybe there is coming a second film and I may change my mind to 10/10 after seeing the conclusion.

Shortly If you are living in Turkey don't miss it!! If you are living out of Turkey if you can't see it in the theater take the DVD,you won't regret.

P.S.: It's a good idea that Jean Claude Van Damme is playing in the movie to attract an interest but the poorest level of acting is from him in the whole acting squad I think.

I read some topics of this film's board,some turk is praising g.o.r.a,and some other people declare they don't even know what is going on,why i am comparing this movie to gora,because of same directors,and gora was utterly crap..

anyway this movie is absolutely local,if you are not familiar with Turkish University Entrance Exam,probably there wont any empathy with feelings of characters,because in other countries the exam isn't same as ours..

The movie brings us the feeling of wrong idea of this exam,and it also adds everyone has thought to make difference,but in the end you wont,only hard-workers will win in the end,so criticism of exam and showing the results of working is too balanced so,we can agree it both ways..

Acting:Not the greatest there are some typecasting characters such as Big-Bad-Headmaster,Slutty music teacher,horny tea seller,punk-girl who was before a actual girl etc..But we can feel what students fell really,because of i was in that exam last year,i know that pressure and you feel it too..

Scenes:Some kinda video clip style,which is absolute problem of director,and because of shooting you always feel like its Requem For A Dream,and it also gives you pressure too..

Scenario:Good..The tie-in's are great,the evolution of characters are good,first the dream sequence which gives us emotions of characters to frp style evolution of their work style;first stealing math exam,second stealing their pre-test exams,then the final one..

Jean Claude Van-Damme:We see him talking french and being himself and B type movie style kick and steal sequences,what can we ask for more for this film? Chuck Norris? Our country isn't concerned with his facts,by the way he is much more popular in here,and the poster of film actually have him..(although he made it 10 minutes max.) So,if you are some kinda evolved with University Entrance Exam,you definitely enjoy this film,but you are from another country maybe enjoy the feelings of students and-thankful for yours- because there is no empathy for you..

This movie successfully shows the audience how this "university exam" concept affects high school students' lives dramatically in Turkey. In my opinion the acting performance of all the young actors are great and effective and also the musics chosen for the movie are making the movie more emotional and binds you with the characters of the movie more deeply.

I guess the ones who will find a part from their life in this movie are the students. Also in the film we see not only the exam stress that the students are dealing with but also their relationships and mostly disagreements with their parents. In my opinion every parent should watch this movie as well in order to see how their negative attitude can have crucial effects on the child's psychology.

"Sinav" is a movie worth seeing for. I'm sure that everyone will enjoy this synthesis of drama and comedy.