So many ridiculous errors

Rating: 1/10 (21 December 2012)

I am a Turkish-American who lives in Istanbul. The movie was pathetically bad in terms of containing so many geographical, historical and cultural errors. It was almost unbearable for me to watch knowing Istanbul and the life here.
First of all, most of the action seems to take place in the Old Historical City of Istanbul. It's unique in its arrangement and really doesn't reflect the rest of the city. That's fine, but the whole movie was so horrible in terms of the plot and how the action takes place. Here are a few gross errors:
1. When they are kidnapped at first and placed in a van, the van goes on to a car ferry and crosses over the Bosphorus from the Old City (European-side) to the Asian side which is probably 15-20 km away. Yet, later on when Liam Nielson's character calls his daughter, she is just a few kilometers away still in the Old City.
2. There is no US Embassy in Istanbul, as the Embassy is in the capital city Ankara. There is a US Consulate and it's far from the Old City in a more modern area of the city. Wow! How ridiculous to have 50 caliber heavy duty machine guns and fully armed Marines outside the so-called Embassy right on the street. They shoot at the taxi, but the taxi has a few small bullet holes in it. That kind of heavy armament would completely rip the taxi into pieces. And then they drive right through a stupid little police booth and are in the courtyard of the so-called Embassy. By the way, that is not the US Consulate in Istanbul. It's in a different location and it's like a Ft Knox sitting on top of a hill surrounded by huge walls at the bottom of the hill. There is no way to drive into it. Marines don't stay on the outside with heavy machine guns on tripods in full battle gear, Turkish police and private security do.
3. The girl who couldn't even pass her driving test in the US with an automatic transmission car all of a sudden is an expert rally driver driving a stick shift through the narrow, crazy streets of the Old City. By the way, there is so much traffic there that it's bumper to bumper, it's impossible to speed through any street in Istanbul like that, especially in the middle of the day.
4. The girl is running around throwing grenades all over the city and nothing happens. It's ludicrous.
I am so tried of these movies that literally INSULT OUR INTELLIGENCE. Pathetic excuse for a movie. Taken 1 was a great movie. This one is a total mess. At least call it the US Consulate, man!!!