Der Henker

Cellat, the Turkish version of Death Wish, sticks fairly close plotwise to the template of the American film, with some scenes and bits of dialogue being almost identical. However, it also deviates from its inspiration at times and is at its most interesting and valuable in these little moments, providing lurid snapshots of a place and a culture.

Expectedly, and true to the heroes of Turkish genre cinema, the vigilante in this film is significantly more sadistic than his stateside counterpart and devises amusing means of dispatching his targets at the end. Along the way there's a Turkish funeral, a very welcome bellydance, and distinctive, somewhat exotic music (played over and over again at intervals).

As film-making, Cellat isn't special. The acting is heavily stylized, to put it diplomatically, and the sound editing is slapdash, with music cues cut off abruptly. Don't expect a high definition picture, either. My rating of 7, which may seem generous, is partly reflective of the fun of having discovered another obscure and idiosyncratic movie from the other side of the planet.

One of the nifty things about Turkish cult cinema from the 60s & 70s has to do with their distribution methods. Very quickly, Turkish impresarios realized that it was far cheaper to make their own versions of high profile Hollywood style A-list movies than it was to actually pay to import the real McCoy and show them legally. The result was two or three decades of endearingly goofy ultra low budget ripoff pictures that just happened to have the same stories as STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, TARZAN, etc. The idea wasn't so much to make shot-for-shot remakes as it was to gather some local talent both in front of and behind the cameras (usually 16mm) and make something that might capture the basic spirit of the original, even if the end results look sort of like a 12th grade drama club's version of BEN HUR, or whatever, with like four guys riding donkey carts around an old motorbike dirt track for the big chariot race instead of a cast of thousands in a historically accurate colleseum re- creation.

Usually they would take their cue from whatever the big hit of the day was, and in 1975 no action movie was a bigger hit than DEATH WISH with Charles Bronson, a film I have never really cared for. They found themselves a relatively charismatic local actor (Serdar Gorkhan) who was able to ape Bronson sufficiently and came up with a similar plot (Liberal intellectual goes on a killing rampage after his wife & sister are raped and mauled by a pack of doper scumbags) that just happens to employ similar situations (the bundle of change in the sock, the gift of a pistol from a business associate, a puking scene after the first shooting) to cover the major plot turns of the original, then filled in the blanks with their own solutions.

One of the things that works really well about this "Turkish Death Wish" is the use of locations in the marvelously atmospheric crumbling back alleys and rat infested cloisters of old Istanbul, as The Executioner -- as he is dubbed by the local media -- goes out every night to set himself up as a target for the various low-lifes and dregs of society, then blow them away in a nonstop orgy of bloodletting that may actually have a larger body count than the original Michael Winner film. What's missing of course is the social commentary, or rather that wasn't so much the focus of the movie, since on the surface Bronson's film only appeared to be about him going out & shooting muggers. The plot stays loyal to that basic premise to the exclusion of all other concerns, more or less, with some exploitative navel gazing and nudity thrown in for good measure.

Along the way we get the usual zany Turkish cult mayhem scenes, some of which are genuinely amusing such as the scene where the trio of dirtbags steals an old woman's cabbage and toss it back and forth while she shakes her fist and screams at them to give her back her cabbage. Then there is a scene where he wires up one of the goons to fry like a short circuited Christmas Tree that has to be one of the funniest executions of a murdering rapist ever filmed ... I guess you just sort of have to see it for yourself. The film also actually manages to anticipate Bronson & Winner's DEATH WISH 2 in that Gorkhan eventually sets out to take revenge on those who ruined his life, where Bronson was more just targeting everyday thugs in his first DEATH WISH outing. We of course end up rooting for Gorkhan even though like Bronson he's acting outside of the law, and if the ending is to be believed nobody really gives a damn because his reign of terror over lawlessness was exactly what was called for. Dirty Harry rocks the Casbah, if you will.

Is the movie any good, however? Probably not on a strictly technical or academic level though some of it is rather stylishly photographed, but then again it was only made for a few thousand dollars as a bit of ephemeralia which was never intended to be around much longer than the DEATH WISH craze itself. The film would be shown as a shaky, scratchy 16mm print playing in nicotine dens to audiences who just wanted to see the latest movie, and it was probably as well received as Bronson's film was here. If anything I find this to be a much more honest movie because it doesn't have aspirations to be anything more than cheap exploitation, and succeeds marvelously just by being what it is: A scummy, violent, ghastly little film that was here one week & gone the next, replaced by whatever the new craze was. Can't wait to see the Turkish "Jaws".

6/10

As a general rule vigilante films aren't especially my cup of tea. Ordinary men turned heroes, above and beyond the law, striking down all and sundry criminals, I tend to baulk at the amorality of it all. Still I can get behind a loopy trash picture about as much as anyone and Cellat succeeds amply in that department while ripping off Death Wish in apparently slavish fashion. I've not seen Death Wish in some eight odd years so its hard for me to especially link the two films, except that I do remember Death Wish getting pretty dull in its final block, which certainly isn't the case here. Everything about the plotting here is familiar, but the film twists it around into odd and interesting shapes, its certainly inept in a lot of places but its weird as well, and funny, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not but in some surprising places pretty rib-tickling in a "What on Earth am I watching?" kinda way. For instance, anything not use of is stripped from the original so that the finale can have our hero Orhan setting out in search of serious vengeance, which he does in sadistic fashion more suited to Italian films of the era than the common American fare. Only problem is, the ambition some way outstrips the budget and expertise, so once effective wince maker moment aside the finale is more the stuff of grotesque comedy. The villains are straightforward figures of fun when they first appear, but switch to psycho rapists in the blink of an eye, this might have worked but even as brutes they act like idiots, like clothed apes parodying human villainy. The violation itself is played as mean spirited rough and tumble rather than truly brutal, but still succeeds in off key unsettlement, editing is abrupt but appropriate while sound effects editing cheerfully mixes comical ineptitude with surprising competence. A good number of bloody squibs are used on villains, and their jerking flails when shot have unexpected impact, there's a good body-count too and the film is rather fun when it gets moving, yet never reaches above basic entertainment despite patches of excitement and stylish photography. I guess that's the genre working on me, repetitive stuff that doesn't distinguish itself until the final 20 minutes but still reasonable, with a big help coming from fine moustachioed Serdhar Gorkhan as our hero. He has a good grim faced presence, exuding authority and a charisma that really makes you want him to succeed, pulls of some tearing emotional scenes as well. I could have done with more intensity and certainly more nudity and twisted behaviour, though there is a little the film is kind of a let down in that department. Still I had a good time here and if a Turkish rip off of Death Wish sounds like your cup of tea, you might well do also.

Mild-mannered architect Orhan (Serdar Gökhan) goes all vigilante on Istanbul after his wife and sister (see, they changed it!) are attacked by a trio of street thugs (one looks like Telly Savalas, another like David Crosby). This is highly amusing to see if you are a fan of Bronson original as this is the same film only sped up to fill 80-minutes. There are scene-for-scene reenactments with a few fresh spins on the original material. For example, they change the ending so that Orhan gets revenge on the group who attacked his family. Let's just say Bronson didn't pitch a guy out of a fifth story window (yet). Onar Films released this one on DVD and, if you are a fan of the subgenre, it is definitely worth picking up. There is a nice 25-minute documentary on Turkish revenge films that will leave you sad because, like the Mondo Macabro docs, you realize 95% of the movies they show clips from you will never get a chance to see.