Toss-Up (2004)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

OST album for this movie is one of the best albums ever made in Turkey, in my opinion. All tracks were made by Erkan Ogur, a Turkish musician playing many different instruments making Turkish folk music and Jazz. The tracks are very effective on the feelings given by movie when they are heard. I recommend this movie and the OST album to every single IMDb user, not only Turkish users but everyone from the world.Unfortunately, despite the awards the movie has taken, the movie wasn't watched by many people in Turkey. This is why I always think the movie has always been underrated. It tells about many different problems faced by Turkish people, so one could find something from himself on the movie. Even if that doesn't happen, you would put yourself in the shoes of the main characters and see how little things affect your whole fate.

The film actually has two separate stories, starting from the same scene. First story is about a small town guy who comes back from the military service as a wounded handicapped man. The next story is about his friend who comes back home in the big city after army service. Their before-military dreams are destroyed when they confront realities of life. I liked the first story better because it is very probable and realistic. However, the second story, is not as strong as the first, mainly because of telling a marginal story, (army guy turns into mafia guy, his daddy had a former marriage with a Greek woman, and their son is half Greek half Turkish gay man).. So second story mainly revolves around the psychological conflicts on how come a Turkish commando-mafia guy had a gay Greek half brother.. I wonder how many turks had this same conflict :) This is a typical trap of many Turkish movie makers usually fall.. They focus on a marginal story, and lives of marginal people, and they miss the huge majority of people, and their ordinary lives. The realism in the movie weakens when almost all characters are losers, alcohol and drug abusers. Movie also is loaded with too many things which reduces its believability: terrorist/military conflict, Turkish guy loving a terrorist conflict, painful earthquake, Greek Turkish relations, gay-macho conflicts, substance abuse, mafia, son father conflict, etc .. too many things in one package.. Conclusion: Nice to watch, especially the first story, but it could have been done better..

It is a brief lesson on our lifes I guess written by Ugur Yücel, and taught through the beautiful acting performances of Turkey's greatest screen figures in a such a great atmosphere(classroom let's say)Real Turkish cinema, real creativity I must say, such a masterpiece that could make me push the all former Hollywood big-shots which are imposed in our minds for ages ,to the other side.(Not that I have a thing about them,I adore American Cinema)A title that any HUMAN BEING must watch. And I can not end my comment without an inquiry about cinema and what people understand from cinema in my country.I, right now, condemn any sort of Turkish illiterated and unthoughtful acts done within this site and much worse indeed, on the streets and at the widely accepted columns of our newspapers in this country and go on to walk on my path to encourage and support those few people who really devote their lifes on this kind of arts-creation.They do not shoot sketches and name it CINEMA, they do not exploit our deepest feeling through out the things our people have been up to, they do not shoot re-makes with old-clowns and a bunch of weird so called actor-comedianish people.They just create...For themselves, and for us,or at least for the ones who just think like us...Thank You Mr. Ugur Yücel... P.S. : I call everyone of you people, to continue watching movies like this,paying attention into them, discussing them in public and buying it's DvDs and stuff...This will be greatest way to support them and raise their value.Both domestically and internationally in every way...Because it is way better than to ORGANIZE PEOPLE TO VOTE THIS MOVIE AND TRY TO MAKE IT TOP 10 OR SOMETHING in this web-site.Those kind of (above-mentioned) contributions will encourage those man to shoot better ones and make our 'values' TOP-TOP-TOP 10 in the big picture.Thank you...

Ugur Yucel,the giant movie star of Turkish cinema, is very successful in his directorial debut.In his movie,he has very impressively described the different and dramatical stories of two men who had been wounded in the war lasting for nearly 20 years at Southeast region of Turkey.This movie must be accepted as the first movie based on this terrible conflict.This war has affected every individual living in Turkey and everybody have something to say on this war.So in my opinion, Yucel has filled the biggest gap in Turkish cinema with this brilliant movie.Olgun Simsek is acting wonderfully and showing his linguistic ability especially when he is talking in Middle Anatolian accent. I wish many more people to watch this movie and the movie gets all the credits that it deserves..