IIn one of the opening scenes of Turkish Detective — yes, it’s about detectives, yes, it’s set in Turkey, and yes, the extremely literal meaning of the title foreshadows the less mentally demanding nature of this detective drama — Turkish-born, British-raised police officer Mehmet Suleyman is greeted at Istanbul airport by his new boss, a man of his own, a fatherly inspector. Asked why he’d decided to transfer from the Metropolitan Police, Suleyman begins to respond in Turkish, but his traveling companion quickly interjects: “No, English, please! It’ll be good practice.”
Lucky for you! Presumably everyone else Suleiman meets also needs to practice his language skills, from his estranged girlfriend to all the murder suspects his team works on (He speaks English with pretty much everyone outside his immediate family). Needless to say, that’s not particularly authentic, but the series isn’t exactly authentic; it’s written by Skins’ Ben Schiffer and adapted from the Hellboy series of crime novels by East End-born Barbara Nadel, who now lives in Essex.
The film isn’t entirely culturally bogus: It was shot in Istanbul, and the first two cases are set in the palatial mansions of the city’s upper class. The mostly Turkish cast, some of whom may remember dad-boy Haluk Bilginer from his late 1980s EastEnders role (where he played Mehmet Osman, the womanizer, cafe owner and one-time pimp for Pat Butcher), bring charisma to an otherwise clumsy, retired detective role who is actually quick-witted, unconventional and endearingly charming.
Ethan Kai (best known for appearing in Emmerdale), who got his start in British soap operas, struggles to keep up as Suleiman, a young detective with mysterious motives. But Suleiman is too ordinary to stick to a stereotype; he spends much of the film looking completely emotionless, perhaps reflecting his restrained Britishness amid the chaos of his native country. Yasemin Allen does her best as another stereotype: the suave, sarcastic policewoman. At least we can be grateful that she’s not the bearded, bespectacled “resident tech genius Tarik.”
Given these pedestrian storylines, if Turkish Detective has any hope of success, it needs to start with an interesting plot. Its first case, the murder of Gezde, the teenage fiancée of a prominent businessman, barely manages to do this. There are plenty of suspects and enough twists and turns to make you think twice: Gezde’s angry father, a highly suspicious fiancé, a secret boyfriend on the run, and a not-so-secret TikTok account (followed by the father’s teenage daughter). But the film ruins what could have been an interesting opportunity to discuss misogyny in Turkey. The father’s daughter wants to speak at Gezde’s memorial. Her message is that it’s not up to girls to protect themselves, but perpetrators to change their behavior. This is dismissed as naive by her father, but his subsequent rescue of her gives the belief more weight. Elsewhere, the treatment of women feels distinctly uncomfortable. While trying to provoke Gezde’s father into confessing, the father asks, “Who would want to hurt such an honorable, well-behaved young woman?” The underlying message is that she isn’t. Does that mean she deserves to die?
Another woman who refuses to succumb to societal pressure is, as Suleyman’s ex-lover suggests, an investigative journalist. She’s not doing so well either. It soon becomes clear that her predicament is the real reason he has decided to return to Turkey. Only recently, she was hit by a car and suffered a serious (and medically insignificant) head injury, likely to prevent her from publishing the results of her recent investigation. What kind of catastrophe could she have wreaked? Suleyman’s informal investigation of the accident would have been a more credible source of intrigue had our guide’s presence not been so convincing.
Despite the setting, “The Turkish Detective” is a classic feel-good British detective story. The detective team’s methods are not very good upon closer examination (and at times downright ridiculous), but that’s okay. It’s a feel-good fantasy of a police system where the truth is definitive and always unearthed in the end. In fact, the series is so feel-good that it can be hypnotic. The strangest thing is the pace: ice cold at times, then incredibly fast. There’s a relaxing warmth to the setting, and an unusual amount of silence during conversations that keeps me in a comfortable daze 90% of the time. With a relatively simple and reliably outlandish plot and the dreamy cacophony of British-inspired Istanbul, “The Turkish Detective” never keeps me up at night. In fact, it might help me fall asleep.
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