Based on a play of the same name,Hüdaverdi Yavuz's directorial debut Eşrefpaşalılar tells the story of two old friends who moved to Istabul from one of the neighborhoods of Izmir (Eşrefpaşa)years ago. Tayyar (Hüseyin Soysalan),an organized crime leader, and Davut (Turgay Tanülkü), a coffee shop owner who used to be friends with him ages ago seem to be part of the same neighborhood which can't exactly tell the difference between good and bad. One day a stranger(Sinan Albayrak) drops by in Dursun's coffee shop. He just wants to have some tea but Dursun takes him for policeman in plain clothes. What he doesn't know is that he is just an imam who has been recently appointed to the virtually derelict mosque of the neighborhood. Sooner than later, the imam at first gains the favorable acceptance of Dursun and later on he wins the good graces of the whole neighborhood with his non-judgmental,understanding and open-minded character. The imam character is claimed to be based on the life of Fethullah Gülen ( Turkish preacher living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania) while he was a simple imam in 1960s' Izmir. It should be duly noted that the recent Turkish movies (like Wrong Rosary) do really something for the public image of the religious people. In the old Turkish movies, the imams were mostly sneaky dissemblers.The imam in Esrefpasalilar is not the stereotypical imam you would meet neither in a movie nor in real life. He's open-minded and understanding. He does not judge. He doesn't read only religious-oriented books but he reads book like "On the Origin of Species." But is the character really credible? We can't really know for sure whether the movie took the events directly from Gulen's life (or Gulen was he really such a person or not?) but we expect that there must be such rare imams. Cinematically, neither question matters though.Logically, there could be such an imam but there is no possibility that there may be a deserted mosque in any part of today's Turkey. (at least not in that shape) What's more, the imam takes the job of a teacher and he teaches Turkish to primary school kids. I'm sorry but even the kids in the most distant Eastern villages in Turkey have a teacher to teach that subject to them.Maybe in 60s things worked like that but when you make a movie in which people use cell-phones you need to do better than that. Besides if you need a swashbuckling hero in your movie you do not need prison clichés to show how brave he is. So, Esrefpasalilar is a formulaic,predictable and a bit far-fetched movie but on the other hand it's a hilarious movie with its funny moments (like that praying scene under the rain) and upbeat and original characters (like the thief who sleeps in the mosque).One can't really make sense of why 187 voters (43.4%) rated it ten while the 27.4% (187) of the voters rated it one. I guess one should never talk about the breakdown of the figures when it comes to movies like this one. Esrefpasalilar is neither the best nor the worst movie of the year. Watch it. Who knows? You may just find yourself amazed.
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