Five minarets in New York
The attempt to use the subject of terrorism not only as a hook for a stenciled action thriller, but also to make it a serious subject of negotiation in the same film, must inevitably fail. "Five Minarets in New York" represents a kind of worst-case scenario of such an approach: On the basis of an absurd plot, the film turns out to be completely disoriented with regard to the representation and evaluation of the individual political positions on Islamism Ambitions fail "Five Minarets ...", because even as a pure action cracker, the film by Mahsun Kirmizigül is hardly useful due to a lack of understanding of the nature and the rules of the genre.
The alleged top Islamist terrorist Hadji Gümüş (Haluk Bilginer), wanted in Turkey, has been arrested in New York. The two Turkish policemen Acar (Mustafa Sandal) and Firat (Mahsun Kirmizigül) are supposed to transfer him to Europe. On the way to the airport, however, Hadji is freed by his religious followers and the two police officers are taken prisoner. Surprisingly, Hadji subsequently proves to be an extremely courteous host, who lets Acar and Firat share his religious knowledge. While the two Turkish police officers are increasingly doubting Hadji's guilt, the FBI, under the leadership of the hardliner Becker (Robert Patrick), has also started tracking ...
It is clear from the start that although two levels are to be linked in a causal logic, they remain unrelated to their content. "Five Minarets ..." wants to give an insight into the essence of Islam and Islamist terrorism, but at the same time to be an explosive orgy of action and pictures. Unfortunately, a content-related debate can only take place if it is actually debated In addition to a few quotes from the Koran, there are only sparse parts of the speech that rely exclusively on phrases. The climax of the stilted pseudo-discourse is the first conversation between the two Turkish police officers and FBI agent Becker, who is woodenly fed up recited well-known 9/11 vengeance phrases, while Firat and Acar, just as devoid of meaning, adopt a differentiating European stance: a single farce. The drawing of the figures is just as deficient. Motives for action are hardly plausible, the stereotype of the characters is tiring. Hadji, for example, is supposed to be charismatic leader obviously some kind of Turkish Gandhi dars but doesn't know anything useful to say apart from the Koran passages.
The film's inconsistent attitude towards torture is also really annoying, as it appears, despite all the attempted criticism of Islamist terrorist methods, to be Firat's police tactic - water torture, of all things, is given an inglorious positive role.
Even as a mere action film, "Five Minarets ..." owes a lot. The high-gloss pictures, which are clearly oriented towards Michael Bay, cannot create that level of tension that was neglected to prepare on the level of figure drawing. Because while the best examples of the Convincing genres with wit and pithy characters, Kirmizigül only offers cliché-based flatness. "Five Minarets in New York" almost seems like a deconstruction of its obvious Hollywood role models, because the film reduces two-dimensional US action films to precisely those properties that they so little Make it worth seeing: a sloppy script and unbelievable characters.
Of course, one cannot deny that Kirmizigül is at least trying to create the impression of speed and dynamic action through visual opulence; however, this remains fruitless, because the absurdity of the story and the dialogues are simply too disturbing. The fact that another unnecessary action thriller was produced is less bad than the fact that the film fails in its claim as a discourse contribution: "Five Minarets in New York" arouses false expectations and fails to provide a serious Islamic reflection on the subject of terrorism to deliver.