Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Detective is set up for a murder; language, drugs, violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
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10 Days of a Bad Man
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
As in 10 Days of a Good Man, the disbarred-lawyer-turned private-investigator of 10 DAYS OF A BAD MAN is an unflappable tough guy who likes to offer flippant remarks and dry asides as he comes face to face with murderous criminals. This time, Sadik (Nejat Isler) has changed his name for unknown reasons to Adil and, with that, the confusion that permeated the first movie gets off to a galloping start in the sequel. Confusion is the overarching quality of both and, given the number of competing plots and subplots, it sometimes seems to be the goal. Sir (Erdal Yildiz), the psychopathic mobster Sadik-Adil crossed in the first film, wants his money back. As a way to repay the supposed debt, Sadik-Adil must find some guy ASAP. Instead of leaving Sadik-Adil to scramble to get the job done, Sir sets Sadik-Adil up in a cushy apartment, gives him lots of money, a new wardrobe, and henchpeople (Kadir Cermik and Riza Kocaoglu) to assist. For no good reason, he tells a psychiatrist that his young, retired sex worker wife died in childbirth, leading him to try to kill himself in a car. To add romance, his young and beautiful social-media-savvy assistant Pinar (Ilayda Akdogan) falls for him. Several subplots, diversions, and many, many secondary characters later, Sadik-Adil realizes he's being framed. He has, in the meantime, been hired to sort out an unsolved murder, and that story has exponentially more confusing subplots.
Is It Any Good?
10 Days of a Bad Man is a loooong, ridiculous movie. It mashes up American detective literature with a hodgepodge of famed TV detectives -- especially Columbo -- along with some Hamlet and philosophy thrown in, all badly glued together by a score that combines spaghetti Western twang with Vivaldi, and too many plots, characters, flashbacks, and long expository monologues explaining it all to us. For example, Maide's friend Buket's mother thinks her brother, Hasmet, was murdered not by Ranat and Ianna, but by his own wife, Jale, whose daughter, Gul, went to school with Buket, who has a twin, and Sukran, who now walks with a cane because she was pushed down the stairs as a girl and is an otherwise irrelevant person with a limp. Phew. It goes on and on this way.
Though set in a similar world, this has nowhere near the depth, interest, or comprehensibility of either Goodfellas or The Godfather. Its smirking comic tone tries to reproduce the jazzy style of Get Shorty and Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11, only without the wit or planning. "I already died," says one character when another threatens his life. "I'm in purgatory just waiting for my time." That's just the way you feel watching this.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how movies effectively tell stories. Is there such a thing as too much plot? Why might that be a problem?
What happens when characters tell long, detail-filled stories as a substitute for showing the audience what happened? Does this movie slow down when long, seemingly irrelevant stories are told?
Why do you think a mobster demanding someone repay a large debt to him would then lend the debtor a lot of money and give him nice clothes? What else in this movie doesn't make sense?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : August 18, 2023
- Cast : Nejat Isler , Ilayda Akdogan , Erdal Yildiz
- Director : Uluc Bayraktar
- Inclusion Information : Middle Eastern/North African Movie Actor(s) , Female Movie Actor(s) , Female Movie Writer(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Drama
- Run time : 123 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : August 31, 2023
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