A true disappointment.

Rating: 4/10 (6 June 2019)

I watched this movie expecting great, if not necessarily sublime, things from it, and got a very pedestrian product, neither truly awful nor particularly good. My problem is that, to avoid spoilers, I hadn't read the reviews beforehand and therefore didn't note the obvious ballot-stuffing that IMDb's algorithms were apparently too unsophisticated to catch. The upshot is that I got a movie that was nowhere near meeting any expectations of quality. As nationalist/propaganda pieces go, it's average. It's no worse about that than many other movies. However, the ridiculous overrating has, at least for me, the opposite effect than the voters intended -- rather than elevating Turkish cinema, they've effectively left me suspicious of any ostensibly high-rated Turkish movie. If this particular movie is the apex of Turkish cinema, I have no particular drive to see any others. Indeed, thanks to the bad taste left in my mouth over the difference between expectations and reality, I'm likely to literally pick any other country's movies over Turkish ones right now.
The movie itself was fairly standard. Lots of jingoism, the near-deification of the military in question, and some decent cinematography. But nothing special, and certainly nothing that rates remembering for more than a few minutes after it's over. If I'm going to watch ultra-nationalist fantasies, I'd just as soon watch ones with better budgets and production values.