Stream It Or Skip It: ‘10 Days of a Good Man’ on Netflix, a Delightfully Twisty Turkish Noir-Comedy

Turkish film 10 Days of a Good Man (now on Netflix) is a mystery-slash-comedy about a wannabe tough-guy private dick who idolizes the Philip Marlowe character from detective novels and noir films, specifically the Elliott Gould version. Director Uluc Bayraktar adapts Mehmet Eroglu’s novels about that “good man,” and like any good noir, the film has enough twists and complications to make you want to fire up a spreadsheet to keep track of who’s where and doing what with whom. And you know what, all the clever plot curlicues and colorful characters – the primary components of this genre, you know – are a goddamned delight in this instance.  

10 DAYS OF A GOOD MAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We’ll get back to this opening sequence, eventually – a crazy opening sequence in which two cloaked, masked people turn murder into some sort of sick-ass performance art. The body gets buried in the woods and then we meet Sadik (Nejat Isler), who wanders along a beach in an island paradise, part of an oft-recurring dream – we’ll get back to this a few times, too. Sadik’s reality is significantly less pleasant. He’s kinda hoofing it around from gig to gig, snooping for a lawyer who needs dirt on people. The Lawyer, capitalization necessary, is Maide (Esra Ronabar). Sadik used to be her law partner, but what with one thing and another, he ended up in jail and was disbarred and now here he is, in his signature cruddy hoodie and corduroy jacket, sitting in her office, saying yes to a thankless gig. Her nanny’s adult son is missing. Thirty days, no trace. Can Sadik find him? Sigh. He agrees.

Maide is one of several potential fatale-types in Sadik’s life. Most beguiling is his neighbor, known by some as Seval – I think that’s her work name – real name Fatma (Ilayda Alisan). At first you wonder if she’s his assistant; she calls him “Sir” and does little chores to help him out. But that’s just how she flirts with him. She’s half his age and a sex worker and always smiling and comfortable around him and makes herself at home and not falling in love with her just ain’t an option. You kind of want to call her The Sex Worker but there’s more to her than that, so much more. Sadik sometimes crashes with Meral (Senay Gurler), an out-of-work actress who we’ll just call The F— Buddy. They kinda co-parent a dog, and Meral seems nice enough, endearingly eccentric and sweet in her own way, although you wonder if Sadik doesn’t spend the night with her just so he can hang out with the dog. 

And then there’s the woman who appears in Sadik’s tropical dreams. That��s Rezzan (Nur Fettahoglu). Here’s the saddest part of his sad-sackiness: She’s The Ex-Wife. Also a lawyer. As the story goes, she got into some legal trouble and Sadik fell on the knife. Went to jail for her. And while he was in there, she dumped him and married a 500-gallon douchebag. That shit STINGS. And thus, Sadik’s more than a little aimless. But he has a job now, you know, the one I mentioned before I mentioned the most interesting stuff about the movie. Sadik wanders through skeezy drughouses and even skeezier Michelin-starred restaurants trying to figure out what happened to this guy, Tevfik. Key to the investigation is Tevfik’s sister, Pinar (Ilayda Akdogan), a.k.a. The Schoolgirl. This is one of those plots where Sadik keeps meeting gorgeous, dangerous women, and being pulled aside by terrifying goons and thugs and even more terrifying lawyers and boardroom-dwellers who wear loafers without socks. There’s The Scarred Mug and The Bouffant, The Beard and The Pharmacist, and eventually, The Ponytail and The Vampire Twins. You should watch the movie, not just because it’s really good, but so you can determine which of these guys are backalley mobsters and which ones are wine-bar slicksters. They’re all pretty much birds of the same amoral scummy feather, though.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Sadik has a poster for The Long Goodbye hanging in his living room above a TV that’s never not playing The Long Goodbye (hey maybe it’s time to fire up Tubi and watch The Long Goodbye!). Sadik also resembles the Russell Crowe character in The Nice Guys a little bit, and 10 Days shares a similar playful tone and twisty plot.

Performance Worth Watching: Movies like this that deal with inalienable corruption need their ray of positivity and sunshine, and in this instance it’s Ilayda Alisan. ONE THOUSAND HEART EMOJIS.

Memorable Dialogue: Sadik’s internal-monologue voiceover: “Even a good man can turn into a villain when pursuing justice.”

Sex and Skin: Female toplessness.

Our Take: 10 Days of a Good Man doesn’t bend over backwards trying to make a statement about the nature of morality and virtue. It features a few irresistible characters – Sadik, Fatma, Meral, perhaps Pinar – with pure hearts who aren’t afraid to walk on the edge, get their hands dirty, do what they must, stuff like that. That’s just enough substance to keep the film from being an exercise in plot gymnastics, because this one is a floor routine, a pommel horse routine and a parallel bar routine all on the same mat at the same time, and therefore requires a ludicrous amount of choreography to keep the participants from smacking into each other.

Do all those strands come together and make logical sense? On first watch, I can’t be sure. It’s a tangle. But it’s a stylishly directed, keenly photographed and highly enjoyable tangle, with across-the-board wily performances. There much joy in watching Sadik turn around his serial misfortune and maybe find a little happiness among his rogue’s gallery of associates and a series of far-less-than-ideal situations. It may require him dealing with some real evil mother-you-know-whats, and even allying with them; it may require him shoving societal norms into the trash chute and just letting himself fall for the too-young-for-him woman next door. I mean, who are you to judge, you with the rock garden in the glass house? True pillars of virtue are unicorns, and besides, who wants to watch a movie about goody-goodies and pollyannas? Sounds like a bore, and 10 Days of a Good Man is absolutely not that.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Good Man is reportedly the first of a trilogy (10 Days of a Bad Man is due in August), and to that I say, bring ’em on.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.