The Executioner/Cellât (Turkish Death Wish)- *** out of *****
Turkey ain't gonna let a good thing go by, so when Death Wish found a big American audience, Turkey replied with their own version. And like all Turkish remakes, it's about four bucks worth of shit slathered onto a piece of limp toast, and then delivered to you like it's filet mignon.
It's pretty faithful to the original movie, only instead of Kersey and his wife vacationing in Hawaii, here they go camping in the winter. Happy anniversary honey, let's go to the tundra! We're also treated to a "chewing" montage, which is fairly befuddling. Since it's Turkey, the murder/rape scene is even more violent and rapey, this time caused by punks (including the Turkish David Crosby and Turkish Yul Brenner) who are so evil that they steal an old lady's cabbage and wear cool vests. It's basically a re-enactment of the key scenes of the original, only the Reader's Digest Condensed Version.
Each scene has actors just spitting enough exposition to get us to the killings. Turkish Kersey (who looks like a Turkish Burt Reynolds…with a mullet) is much more blood thristy, getting his murder on and suffering none of the psychological effects that Bronson had. Well…kinda had, anyway. He still throws up in the sink after the first murder, but then inexplicably rubs the vomit on his face. I assume he's supposed to be splashing water on it, but that's not what it looks like...
It's also more sexist and racist than the original. Besides the amped up rape, the Turkish Burt Reynolds just ignores his secretary, even when she's talking directly to him. But at least she doesn't get her face bashed into the floor like a girl later in the movie. One scene has a girl walking up to a black bartender and saying, "Give me a vodka, blackie." Since this is the only African-American I've ever seen in a Turkish movie, I have to wonder if he was put there simply to be called racial slurs.
They do switch the rape victim from a daughter to a sister, which is either better or worse depending on your individual perversions. It's not quite as ludicrous as the Turkish superhero extravaganzas, but it has its fair share of nuttiness and misspelled subtitles (like "kitschen" or "roberries" instead of robberies). Lines like "Give me back my cabbage!" or "Let's shoot some bullets…it will relax you!" or "This is not a gun…but a poem" might be the result of crummy translations, but it's all part of the charm. Although, I'm not sure how an exchange like this could ever make any sense:
Racist Girl: Get me a vodka, blackie.
Thug #1: Hi…on the rejected one?
Racist Girl: No, on Pasabahce*
Thug #1: I see you don't greet your hunky bro no more
Racist Girl: Your ticket is not valid on our bus!
Thug #1: And we don't give money to ladies!
Racist Girl: Take your paw off me! I'm not on an amateur's team!
*Pasabahce is apparently a Turkish company that makes glassware. I thought figuring that out would somehow make the conversation coherent…but there you go.
Kinda feels like someone just cut phrases out and pasted them randomly into a screenplay, huh?
The last 15 minutes are the truly Turkish portions…when Turkish Burt Reynolds tracks down Crosby, Brenner, and Thug #1, dispatching them in truly hilarious ways (a catharsis Bronson was denied). Crosby gets electrocuted, a trick they pulled off by apparently taping a bunch of sparklers to his chest. Brenner gets shot in the knees and thrown out a window. Thug #1 gets beaten up, his hands smashed by a brick, and then thrown into a furnace. After witnessing this last murder, the cops just let Turkish Burt Reynolds go.
Okay! Thank you, Turkey, for your wonderful cinema!
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