Review of Recep Ivedik (2008) by Chris G — 21 Jul 2010
A broad comedy farce that bring the iconic comedy buffoon to the big screen...
Popular Turkish comedy writer and performer Å?ahan Gökbakar ("Dikkat sahan cikabilir") recruits his younger brother Togan Gökbakar ("Gen") to direct the big screen début of his titular comedy character in this crude farce that was the year's box office number one in Turkey and has spawned two equally successful sequels.
Recep Ä°vedik (Å?ahan Gökbakar) is a fat, aggressive, unibrowed slob who is put up in a classy Antalya hotel as reward for returning the owners lost wallet and proceeds to reek havoc with his uncouth ways as he tries to win over his childhood sweetheart Sibel (Fatma Toptas) in the set-up to this rather uninspired class-clash comedy.
Å?ahan Gökbakar creates an inspired burlesque exaggeration of the modern Turkish peasantry at large in the city while superb support comes from the likes of Fatma Toptas. Tulug Cizgen and Hakan Bilgin as the westernised "White Turks" whose mores and manners he violently collides with to give the film its comic edge.
The film-makers quickly eschew any deep social-commentary on the class-clash at the heart of their film in favour of broad farce and crude behaviour that sets the comedy creation among the likes of Mr. Bean or Borat except that here they are driven by a misguided romantic endeavour that requires us to actually empathise with this boorish buffoon.
"Hear me well; I'm aggressive, I have complexes.".
This review of Recep Ivedik (2008) was written by Chris G on 21 Jul 2010.
Recep Ivedik has generally received mixed reviews.
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