Film

G.O.R.A. (2004)

Director: Ömer Faruk Sorak

Movie review

From Time Out London

Following the Wayans brothers’ unwritten dictum that imitation for imitation’s sake is, much like fart jokes and gay jokes, inherently funny, the wearying Turkish spoof ‘GORA’ rehashes familiar scenes and plot points from ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Matrix’, ‘The Fifth Element’ and other sci-fi standbys in hopes of raising some derisive chuckles. Greasy and unpleasant Arif (screenwriter Cem Yilmaz), a carpet salesman with a sideline in badly staged flying-saucer photos, gets beamed up to a spaceship colony with a male captive population (there’s also a cornrowed, Leia-like princess). He saves the ship from a fireball but that curries no favour with scary chieftain Logar (Yilmaz again)… The budget is obviously low but it’s the humour that bottom-feeds, chewing open-mouthed on overfamiliar movie soundbites, ethnic stereotyping, and depressingly juvenile japes – this is a movie where a prisoner actually drops the soap in the shower.

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