A rather skewed portrayal of Turkish History

Rating: 6/10 (12 September 2012)

As an outsider who knows little of the history of Turkey or the Ottoman empire by the end of this movie I was supposed to feel that Mehmed II besieged and sacked Constantinopal purely to protect the orthodox Christians....
But a movie made by Turks about presumably one of their most important events in history wouldn't have gone down so well if Mehmed was portrayed as a blood thirsty egomaniac with daddy issues. I guess getting the Christians to call him the anti-Christ a couple of times was reason enough to justify the invasion...
I guess it would be the same if a British film company made a film about the heroic bombing of Dresden....
I watched the whole thing and found it rather interesting but in no way justified of it's high score. It wasn't a total waste of my time but then when you've watched everything in the top 250 it's hard to find *really* great movies...
I think they did a pretty good job on their budget. The effects were pretty good, the actors all did a good job and the direction/cinematography was just fine.
I did find a few problems with the plot and such though.
Why did the trapped sappers kill themselves so far from the wall? Why didn't the second suicidal sapper just use a small candle burning down to set off the explosion? The use of two burly guys with beards and long hair made it slightly confusing at the start (Im sure they're very famous in Turkey but they could have differentiated them a lot more). When you're fighting with sharp swords it's not a good idea to use your hands to hold the blades to block...
My biggest problem was the stupid length of the siege. They messed around for 2 months and then *boom* and *boom* they're in and it's all over! I would have been there 2 hours, aimed ALL my canons at the gate and be in the sauna with the girls by sunset...
Glad to see Turkish cinema going for it though! :)