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2003: The USA is invading Iraq, and before long, the war is won ... but
as they are committing every kind of violence against the Iraqi people,
they seem to want to make sure that they will lose the peace: They torture
terrorist suspects in prisons like Abu Ghraib, indiscriminately arrest
civilians as terrorists, harvest on live Iraqi bodies to sell their organs
to the USA, Great Britain and Israel, and kill civilians whenever they
feel like it. But when they attack a Turkish army post (remember, the
Turkish were not the USA's enemies in the Iraq war) and humiliate the
soldiers, this is too much for one man: Polat Almendar (Necati Sasmaz),
who travels to Iraq with his sidekicks Memati (Gürkan Uygun) and
Abdülhey (Kenan Coban) to have revenge on the man behind the attack, Sam
Marshall (Billy Zane), a civilian with army ties who claims to support the
Iraqi peace efforts but actually has his hands in just about everything
illegal.
Actually, what Polat had in mind was comparatively mild compared to
what happens later in the film, he just lured Marshall to a hotel he had
laid mines in and wanted to force Marshall to walk out of it with a bag
over his head, just like the Turkish soldiers had to, otherwise ... bang !
But of course, Marshall came prepared and brought a children's choir into
the mix Polat just refuses to blow up ... and so Polat and company have to
hide out in Iraq, while Marshall will now do everything in his power to
hunt the trio down. Many shoot-outs follow, naturally, with Polat and
company always coming out on top though.
In the meantime, Leyla (Gürkan Uygun) is about to be married when US
soldiers storm the ceremony and kill pretty much everyone in sight,
including Leyla's family and husband to be. Now Leyla is hell-bent on
revenge, and guess who she wants to have her revenge on - Sam Marshall.
Eventually Leyla and Polat and gang get together and they set up a plan
to blow Marshall to Kingdom Come by setting up his new piano (Marshall is
a passionate pianist) with explosives ... somehow that plan fails though,
and from now on, Marshall and his men are more ruthless than ever try to
track down Polat and company.
Of course, it all culminates in a final shoot-out, where Polat and his
men take out dozens of GIs and ultimately emerge from it victorious, but
Leyla has to let her life. However, Polat takes Leyla's dagger in the end,
and places it right into the heart of Marshall, so she can have her
revenge even after her death.
This movie was criticized in the West not so much on grounds of quality
but of ideology, because it portrayed the US-Americans as villains, and
not in some historical but a very current context ... which leads to one
question: Were the USA the villains in the Iraq war ?
Now let me recapitulate: the USA attacked the Iraq without being
provoked and tried to get the UN on their side by claiming the Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction (the Iraq didn't) and presenting evidence that
later turned out to be 100% forged. Later innocent Iraqis (dubbed as
suspected terrorists) were tortured in the Abu Ghraib prison, and no
high-ranking US-politician would even think about taking responsibility
for it while Bush the younger would not outrightly condemn torture
as means of interrogation. And after 3 years it turns out that Iraq has
become a less safe place than it was before the attack, and it now
harbours the terrorists the US claimed it harboured under Saddam Hussein
but didn't ... so yes, based on these facts, the USA can be seen as a
villian in this war (on the plus side of course, they removed Saddam
Hussein - as badass a dictator as they get - and put him to trial).
That said, Valley of the Wolves: Iraq vastly exaggerates the
US-atrocities, US doctors never harvested on Iraqis for organ donations,
and to make the Doctor (Gary Busey) responsible for that a Jew is just in bad
taste (to put it mildly). Other US atrocities, like those that actually
happened in Abu Ghraib prison, are merely put in to make the Americans
even more evil and make no narrative sense in the film, rather they
interrupt the main storyline for no apparent reason ...
This all boils down to one question though: with all the ideological
undercurrents discussed, is Valley of the Wolves: Iraq a good film
?
The answer is no, it's a very crude piece of action cinema devoid of
any memorable setpieces or a congruent storyline alike but resembling the
many mindless American action films with Arabian terrorists - only this
time the good-bad-dichotomy is turned topsy turvey on an ideological
level. Now this might be slightly interesting, but as a whole, the film
just isn't worth your while.
By the way, Valley of the Wolves: Iraq is based on the
long-running and extremely popular Turkish tv-series Valley of the
Wolves, in which Polat Almendar and company are fighting the
Mafia. This might be part of the reason why the film was so incredibly
popular in Turkey (rather than blame it all on anti-American
sentiments).
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find Valley of the Wolves: Iraq at adultvideouniverse.com
