Iraqi Review: Valley of the Wolves - Irak (Kurtlar Vadisi)

ex-Gilgamish once asked me to review this movie at the time of the Turkish incursions, I was willing to do so but the Turks didn't oblige by giving me the appropriate circumstances again, until today: They have launched a full-scale operation with a codename and all, so now is a good time to review the movie touted as the most expensive in Turkish cinema (10.2$ mil to make, made 26.7$, by comparison the most expensive Egyptian (and Arab) film took 4$ mil to make).

The movie shows its horrid premise as a nationalist propaganda piece right from the first frame, a Turkish officer writes to an old ex-Turkish intelligence friend about the shame and disgrace he felt when he was forced to walk out of their station somewhere in northern Iraq with a hood on their heads, which is based on an actual event apologized by Rumsfeld at the time called the Hood Event. Of course, the brave Turk takes annoying lengths in parading his pride and dignity before this takes place, after sealing the letter, he commits suicide, boo hoo.

the recipient of the letter is our brave hero, I forgot his name and I won't bother to look it up so I'll just call him Mr. Big Khasawi (Big Cojones), Abu Khasawi reads the letter, and instead of laughing his ass off at his pathetic pal who took his life for wearing hijab for five minutes ; he immediately hitchhikes to Iraq with 3 Turkish mofos to meet their destination, the super-villian Mr. Arrogant White Jesus Freak (played by Billy Zane, who's probably a registered democrat) who committed this horrible ass-rape of the great Turkish pride, which is only heard of in Turkey, of course.

I must admit that the only fun I had in this movie was watching the Americans get a share of their own poison, as an Arab who's frequently reduced to a stereotype in powerfully influential American films, I had the immense pleasure of watching the Americans here portrayed as nothing but cold, ruthless beasts with little regard for human life, the soldiers look dirty and sport funny degraded haircuts, there's also a Jewish doctor who specializes in stealing human organs (Yes, delicious guilty-pleasure anti-semitism! boo-hoo!) from corpses to sell them someplace else (too bored to concentrate where) and they're led by a glinting-eyes lunatic who believes in spreading the word of Jesus. Of course that stereotype is easier to refute than the Arabs in western media, but that's only because American culture is so recognizable ; it was really fun to watch Billy Zane holding children hostage like a lowly creature.

The problem is that the Turks don't stop there ; this film is an insult to everyone else as well, the Kurds are nothing but American stooges, while the others are helpless, idiotic sheep, only Mr. Khasawi seems to be holding his pants up as a human being. Just look at the picture, the amount of presence (and balls) this Turk has is just Subhan-Allah-unbelievable. The only other positive character is a religious sheik called Abdul-Rahman Kirkukli, an uber-respected sane-sage-in-crazy-world dude who persuades some pathetic Arab Jihadists about to behead a Western Journalism to drop their weapons and then teaches them the true meaning of Islam, it took me about 0.34 seconds to realize that this sheikh is Turkmen, and with a Turkmen named Kirkukli, the nasty Turkish intent is fully blazing here. I bet Barazani was pissed.

Even though Iraq and most of the Arab world was part of the Ottoman Empire for a long period of history, I must admit I know very little about Turks except for the Zagur chewing gums with collectible stickers we used to buy in our childhood (at the time they said it was an Israeli conspiracy and the gum caused sterility, well, I'll tell you if that's true when I get married), so I thought that this was a good chance to become familiar with the Pashas of yore and as a secular I wanted to learn more about the former Caliphate which did an 180 to secularism successfully, sadly, all I came out was the impression that Turks are flag-waving maniacs who think very smugly of themselves and believe they got the market cornered on the meaning of Islam. At the end of the film, the female hero, an Iraqi (Turkmen? her costumes are so weird, more like Indian if you ask me) whose husband was killed by the Piggy Americans and who wanted to become a suicide bomber meets with the Alpha-Male Khasawi who resuces her, together our zero-chemistry heroes kill the Nazionist Billy Zane but he kills the tender Iraqi before her Turkish savior gets to go all kissy on her. boo-hoo.

PROS: Americans look stupid. Thank you brothers in Islam. :D
CONS: Totally Turkish fist-pumping action flick, totally unbelievable in arrogance, at least Saving Private Ryan was believable.