In Uluç Bayraktar's 10 Days of a Bad Man, there is a murder, some bad guys, and a private investigator who's trying to untangle all the threads. The official synopsis on Netflix leads you to expect a thrilling detective story, though what you see on the screen bears no resemblance to the word "thrilling." 10 Days of a Bad Man is a 2 hours and 4 minutes long bad film. It keeps a distance from the audience instead of inviting them in. It moves so blithely that nothing truly feels urgent or necessary. The movie slips away from your grasp and makes you a passive witness. You merely observe the events without getting affected by them.
Sadik/Adil (Nejat Isler) gets into an accident during the opening scene of the film. Two men (Riza Kocaoglu and Kadir Çermik) find him, change his pants and take him to their boss (Erdal Yildiz). The boss tells Adil he has to find someone, and Adil hires Pinar (İlayda Akdoğan) to help him in his mission. After a while, a doctor, Buket (Hazal Filiz Küçükköse), asks Adil to solve a murder, and he tells her to give him sleeping pills. So far, so meh. All these scenes are just casually dropped into the movie. There is a lack of vigor in the filmmaking. Given what happens in the film, it should have been tense, suspenseful, and exhilarating. However, 10 Days of a Bad Man ends up being anemic.
Things never become better, so don't be too optimistic. 10 Days of a Bad Man is shapeless and jumps from one incident to the next without any sense of rhythm. Adil never seems to be using his brain to solve his situation or the crime. The script hands out solutions to him, and he delivers his lines feebly. Adil criticizes Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie by stating that the culprit is always a surprise in their stories, and only the author can easily and quickly guess who's guilty. This might be writers Mehmet Eroglu's and Damla Serim's way of saying they will blow our minds with authenticity. But they forget that there is a lot of fun in reading/watching Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot when they solve crimes. We connect the dots and hunt for clues along with the detectives. Their stories are entertaining.
The same cannot be said about Adil and his narrative. He is a dull character who arrives at certain conclusions simply because that's what is fed to him by the screenplay. He doesn't seem to be using his intelligence and certainly never pulls us into the film. Adil finds the final revelation to be a work of art, but the audience thinks it has wasted its time on trashy material. Among the cast members, Akdoğan is the only watchable actor. She embraces and uninhibitedly displays her seductive charms, making the movie a bit bearable. Still, even she cannot save 10 Days of a Bad Man from becoming utterly forgettable. While I was writing this review, I realized I had also reviewed the prequel 10 Days of a Good Man. Perhaps, while watching the third movie (10 Days of a Curious Man) in the future, I will not remember anything about this sequel.
Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times