An unimaginative Turkish thriller
Grudge is a Turkish thriller that Netflix released on August 15, 2018. It is a cliched and unimaginative film that starts out promisingly but falls short. The story has weak archetypal characters and an unlikable protagonist. The twist at the end is predictable and the film is over before it has even started.
Inspector Harun is our main character in this story. He is celebrating a promotion at work and decides to go out that evening. After fobbing off his wife and child, he is immediately swept up into a big conspiracy. ..
It turns out that this taxi driver is a hired assassin, who tries to kill Harun out at an abandoned forest. One thing leads to another and Harun kills the man in self-defence. When this same deceased man appears atop a huge crane in view of everyone the next day, Harun is thrown reluctantly into the investigation, trying his best to cover his own tracks while finding out who the real culprit behind this is.
The film’s plot is simple enough, with little deviation from the obviously orchestrated twists early on. Rookie Tuncay does start to piece together Harun’s involvement in this, and slowly becomes a more focal part of the story the longer the film goes on. There are also a whole host of archetypal suspects, witnesses and secondary character that join these two but they don’t really do much in the story. ..
The finale of Grudge pits our heroes against a mastermind who has been pulling the strings behind the scenes. The reveal is simple but effective, and the action is straightforward without adding anything new or exciting to the genre. ..
This Turkish film is not helped by its poor production design, with very-obviously-filmed-on-a-set interior car scenes, music that just sporadically cuts in and out of shots, lackadaisical editing and some questionable acting. There’s even a moment late on where one of the actresses on-screen yawns, despite the subtitles claiming she’s gasping. It’s either bad acting or an attempt to disguise some very-obvious boredom. Either way, it’s not a particularly glowing endorsement for this one.
The film is a mess. There’s not much here to enjoy and the story feels very familiar and cliched. The film isn’t outright yawn-inducing, but it’s nowhere near good enough to warrant spending 100 minutes of your time with.
