Turkish Mad Max!

Turkish Mad Max (Olume Son Adim) (1983)

Runtime: 77 minutes

Directed by: Cetin Inanc

Starring: Cuneyt Arkin, Emel Turner, Yildirim Gencer, Nazan Ayas

From: Anit Film

Here's a different sort of review from me. I explain it all below in what I wrote about it for Letterboxd, but it is a Turkish film called Death's Last Step (which is pretty awesome) and somehow it became known as Turkish Mad Max even though it has nothing in common with Mad Max. My review is below:

Here is something quite unusual from me, a review of a super-obscure foreign film which is not dubbed or subtitled yet I had to see it anyhow; in this case, it's something that's been called TURKISH MAD MAX, so how could I not watch it? I did in fact find out about this movie from Letterboxd.

The title is pretty inaccurate, BTW; I don't even know what to compare it to, so I'll say it's more a case where three random people go looking for a kidnapped professor, who is said to have found a cure for leukemia (!), but boy is there a lot of lunacy involved. It shouldn't be a surprise considering it's from the director (Cetin Inanc) and star (the alpha male known as Cuneyt Arkin) of... TURKISH STAR WARS. Yes, I've seen that and one day I will again so I can give it a proper review here but note that it's not quite as deranged as that... what is, though?

I looked at a few reviews of it to get a general idea of what it's about but otherwise I winged it, trying to figure out what's going on without knowing a word of Turkish. Note that yes this indeed is hilariously inept on a frequent basis. It also looks at least a decade older than its 1983 release date. Let me mention some of the highlights:

* Arkin forces a bad guy to eat a packet of heroin, which suspiciously looks like the power from powdered donuts.

* Arkin is such an alpha, he plays cards while waiting for a gaggle of bad guys to show up, which he dispatches by throwing knives at them. Of course he often does his version of kung fu.

* The second hero (Yildirim Gencer, sort of a Turkish Lee Van Cleef, or maybe it's a mix of Van Cleef and Robert Loggia) shows up, and boy does he ever. You see him make out with a young woman (he's a middle-aged man) in a blue bikini as a disco song plays in the background. I knew right away which one the filmmakers stole. It's Have a Cigar by Rosebud. Yes, it actually is a remake of the Pink Floyd song and it is as strange as you'd expect it to be. Arkin shows up, says a few words... and it's implied that they both “hang out” with the bikinied babe.

* The third hero is a lady (Emel Tumer) and I don't think I've ever seen a motion picture gratuitously show off the main women in its cast (her and another lady we meet later on; the two heroes come off as tremendous horndogs). Sure, the women we see are attractive ladies and all but it becomes downright absurd how often it happens and how closely they zoom in on certain bodyparts. Anyhow, her intro was a ripoff of Marion's intro from Raiders of the Lost Ark, except that she and a guy with a giant mustache downs glasses of beer. He tries to-ahem-motorboat her, and a giant brawl breaks out.

* Things happen, such as Arkin flipping a coin more often than Harvey Dent and Tumer ending up in a wet t-shirt with no bra on. Yes.

* A form of the gearing up montage happens. Arkin wears a leather jacket and a bandolero, Gencer dresses up like Han Solo, and Tumer's outfit includes wearing short-shorts where her butt is hanging out. Oh, and the heroes are the ones who do a version of waterboarding.

* Is this like a proto version of The Expendables?

* Once they start the rescue mission, the movie is full of shootings, exploding bullets (yes, exploding; also, the few times the filmmakers try to show muzzle flash, it's animated and wow does it look daffy), Turkish Kung Fu, and other goofiness.

I am not quite sure how to rate this so I'll go with 3 stars, as while it's a gas throughout the first act is stronger-or at least more hilarious to me-than the other two acts, where all the action tends to blend together. If you've ever seen any of these off-the-wall Turkish movies, it is worth seeing this one.