I had seen the trailer for the 2012 Turkish movie 1453 Fetih(Conquest) already,and after seeing it I did not even find it worthy of seeing.But after having heard of the title of this one,I was curious to see it.What I just started to see from the very beginning of the movie though,were the same things I did on that trailer of the Turkish production,amateurish computerized animations thrown in here and there,so apparently visible to the eye that they start being annoying after a while.I was patient however,to get into the developing stages of the plot where the real action was going to happen.All my waits in vain. There are already comments here that mentioned it,so I don't want to repeat the same points over and over but I completely agree with the poor delivery of acting here.Even Murray Abraham,who will always stay in my memory with his unforgettable moments casting for Cuban gangster Omar Suarez in Scarface could not save himself in this misery.(Well,given the horrible plot,there wasn't much he could do) First of all,I won't agree with those who say that not all the things have to be historically accurate as they should have been,if you claim a title depicting an historic event(and as important as this one) I am sorry but there can't be any excuses.Yes there might be of course deviations from the accuracy of the real events at some point,but the plot here so much falls apart that there is not much left throughout the whole picture that actually gives a single idea to spectators what the movie is all about. The characters though are somewhat real except ermm...Abul ? A completely fictitious character,a close friend of Marco D'Aviano and a lover of a young deaf woman,and along with Marco and Kara Mustafa Pasha of Merzifon(yeah this is a Pasha that we are talking about,the Ottoman Grand Vizier) their lives all at some point come across with another ridiculous series of coincidences just made up in this movie.The 11 September message of course is subliminally given to the spectator trying to set the connection with the events of 2001,like it has anything to do with it,blatantly making fun of his/her lack of knowledge on the historical events because the Siege started on 14th July and ended on 12th September. The fictitious Abul's one absurd line while speaking with her lover:''We are Muslims,we are not Westerners,we can't listen to our heart and faith at the same time'' and those lines at the imaginary meeting between Marco and Kara Mustafa,were so out of context and nauseous that a spectator here would completely lose the point of what's going on.I just don't understand that even in 2010s,so pointless and ridiculous vilifying images of another faith,another religious group can be so impudently delivered in cinema.On the final scene where Kara Mustafa is strangled to death for his failure in Belgrade and the executors having his son to watch his execution(the latter I think also never happened) I called it quits but it was already the end of the movie.Is that the expression a kid of his age shows when watching his own father killed for God's sake ? No emotion,no grieving or suffering,shaking,nothing ! Are you kidding me ?
If you are interested in the Ottoman conflicts in East and Central Europe of those times,I advise you to find the 1989 Serbian movie Battle of Kosovo and Romanian productions Vlad The Impaler(1979) and Michael The Brave(1971) with English subtitles if you can.Those too at times deviate from the historical script,but they are way way better in characterizing the incidents and keep you in the main story.At least they do not demean their titles unlike this movie.
If you are interested in the Ottoman conflicts in East and Central Europe of those times,I advise you to find the 1989 Serbian movie Battle of Kosovo and Romanian productions Vlad The Impaler(1979) and Michael The Brave(1971) with English subtitles if you can.Those too at times deviate from the historical script,but they are way way better in characterizing the incidents and keep you in the main story.At least they do not demean their titles unlike this movie.