The Terrorist

Human drama

Turkey

Eagle Entertainment

R4 DVD

English, Turkish with English subtitles

Until now if you mentioned Turkish cinema I would think of the wonderful B grade matinee films being rereleased by Onar. This magnificent film changes that entirely. It is a finely scripted and well acted piece of drama that deals with Turkey’s current problems.

Turkey is one of the world’s few Muslim countries with a secular government. It has prospered and is the envy of many other Moslem countries, but it now has its problems. It has the Kurdish population in the north, a group of squabbling tribes who object to control from Istanbul. They engage in an increasing amount of terrorism in an effort to gain independence. The more radical Moslems, goaded on by Iran, want to see Turkey a full Moslem country and they are not above using terrorism to achieve their ends. The police in return must use increasingly violent methods to combat them.

Two anti-terrorist agents, Firat and Acar, have a lead on a major terrorist named Hadji who is living in New York. They go to New York to track him down, where the FBI is already at work. They regard the man as the leader of a major terrorist organization based purely on the information of the Turkish security police. With the current paranoia about Moslem terrorists in the U.S. the ideals of justice are discarded. They have arrested him and will hand him over to the Turks without trial and deport him. There will be no court appearances, no legal representation. They do not need to prove guilt or innocence.

Firat and Acar are sent to New York to take him into custody, where they find he has escaped from custody. Surprisingly nobody outside the FBI believes he is Dajjal the terrorist. Even his name is different. Through a local Moslem cleric they make contact with him, but he is protected by one of the local Moslem Negro gangs. Hajji makes them an offer – live with him for a few days, then if they still believe he is a terrorist they can do as they wish with him.

They find Hadji is a different man to what they were led to expect. He is a gentle man, a scholar who knows his Koran, and he counsels against violence using passages from the Koran to support his case. Gradually they realise that there is more to this man than they thought, and the idea that he could be a terrorist is replaced by the certainty that he is not the man they are after.

The FBI has been at work, though, and Hadji is recaptured and shipped back to Turkey for trial. Here once again he proves to be a gentle man of honour. In the cell next to him is a true radical cleric who believes in spreading the Koran by killing all non-Moslems. The contrast between this poisonous old man and Hadji could not be greater and even the head of the Turkish antiterrorist squad now believes in Hadji’s innocence. He is released with apologies and decides while he is in Turkey he will visit his mother in Biltis. Firat and Acar decide to go with him.

Meanwhile the head of the squad is investigating how such an obviously innocent man came to be accused of being a terrorist. What he finds sheds new light on Hadji’s history. There are personal vengeances and vendettas to be sorted out, not just political problems.

The film is beautifully executed. Technically it is a credit to the Turkish film industry. The acting is perfect, including a role for Danny Glover as the New York cleric. Even the theme and background music are perfect for the film – sombre but not overpowering. Eagle Entertainment is to be congratulated for picking up this film. If nothing else it highlights the internal problems facing Turkey and compares it with the excesses of the U.S. and the radical Moslems themselves.

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