At the beginning of the film, it was so good. The story, flow of events was so good. In the middle of the film, we can easily understand the murderer. Death of the Idris was so sadness and heartbreaking. At the end of the film, in my opinion, was weird and nonsense. Conversation between Ferman and Battal was nonsense and weird. But totally, film was so good. I recommend all of you to watch this.

First of all, any person would rate or comment on this movie should understand that Hunting Season is not a $100+ million budget movie, or even $10 million! These men had only $4 million to spend on every single detail. Even so, regardless its tiny budget comparing to many Hollywood movie, this one is much more better than numerous Hollywood made. Brilliant director Yavuz Turgul's Hunting Season is really a great alternative for those people looking for something different. Also, this movie puts best Turkish actors all together. If Sener Sen, Cem Yilmaz and even Cetin Tekindor were born in the US, they would be world famous actors, and no doubt Sener Sen would be awarded Best Actor Oscar more than once...

Well where to begin? If this film wouldn't have so much flaws. It would be average at best. I mean the cinematography isn't breathtaking or great as some other reviews described. The shots where pretty simple and nothing really original was done to take it to a higher level. The story is pretty standard, just because it was thickened a bit with an insight of the personal lives of the main characters doesn't make it a better story, on the contrary. From the beginning one could tell that there wasn't much budget to make this film. The film begins with a cheap looking title sequence, that is, if your used to the wonderful designed (Hollywood) titles at the beginning of films. Okay this is one thing that can easily be overlooked though. Than the film starts with the finding of an arm that has been cut off. And this arm unfortunately looked too plastic. It just didn't look real. And then when the unnecessary voice-over kicked in, I knew it would be a long sit. And I was right. What bothered me the most was that there wasn't any balance in this film. Was it trying to be a (black) comedy of some sort? A family drama? A crime thriller? It tried to be all of it at the same time and failed miserably. One of the worst mistakes stories/films can make is not able to make any choice at all. This was one of those stories. SOME SPOILERS AHEAD For example: the character of Cem Yilmaz brought numerous times too much of his comic acting in his role as if the director just let him do what he always does and play some sort of a comical character. This comical effect was made even greater by the suddenness of it. Like at one point the characters being at a stakeout one moment and tension is being build up and another moment the characters are in some sort of a 'A-team' cowboy shootout. Where the 'bad'guys are spraying Uzi machine guns around. Another moment where one could tell that Cem Yilmaz was definitely miscast was when his character was dying and people in the theater actually started laughing as if he where going to say or do something funny in the process of it. Another thing that really annoyed me was the pace of the film. I mean, why did the film had to drag on for an hour more if the plot was already revealed after 90 minutes or so. But no, instead of wrapping it up, they choose to let it drag and drag as if the ending would be such a surprise. All the insights in the personal lives also seemed unnecessary it just seemed too forced or too much. And the whole rookie part could've better been left out. In the end his character seemed to insignificant. Insignificant also was the voice over which had absolutely no function and made the film even more cliché. MORE SPOILERS AHEAD Other things that really bothered were plot holes like: Cem Yilmaz' character who goes to his ex with plans of (maybe) killing her and then when he sits on the couch right in front of her, he gently, but very clearly pulls out a gun and holds it next to him and she (acts) as if she doesn't see the gun... YEAH RIGHT. And then all of a sudden when he is about to pull the trigger, the electricity is cut off. (oh what a coincidence). Or another thing: they go to a doctor to get some information and ask the guy a couple of questions. The doctor answers that he absolutely cannot give them any information, it's supposedly classified. So then they ask, 'okay then give us the address of the previous doctor that can give us all the information we want'. And of course the address is given. Then when they enter the home of the other doctor the guy sits on a couch with his hand under a pillow. Was he sitting there on that exact spot for a week or so waiting for people? And then he pulls out a gun from underneath the pillow and kills himself. Then next to him they find a PC with an application open which has the all the information on it to solve the whole case. Or one more thing: a very clear footprint and tire mark side by side at the crime seen, which belongs to a billionaire who himself try to get rid of a body. As if he doesn't have people that does his dirty jobs? These things occurred throughout the whole film. The only decent performance was from Sener Sen and Cetin Tekindor. As one would expect. I'm sorry but I absolutely cannot recommend this film to anyone. Especially those who have seen TV shows like Law and Order and CSI. Because even those TV shows are better written. Or better yet just watch Mystic River, Zodiac, Seven, Lovely Bones or even The Chaser if you want to see a film with similar themes but far better executed.

Av Mevsimi (Hunting Season) is in certain terms as good as a production can get in Turkey: great cast, great cinematography, great sets, state of the art technology unfortunately though the great production could not be translated into a good movie. Yavuz Turgul is a masterful screenwriter, the best in Turkish cinema history for sure. He knows his mathematics very well. He was time and again proved this since Muhsin Bey. There is no hole in his scripts which is impossible for other Turkish films and scripts that contain more holes than swiss cheese. Mr Turgul has had the self made fortune of collaborating with Sener Sen for over 30 years now! Sener Sen has not appeared in any movie that was not written by Turgul. Hopefully after this his mind will change. Because as masterful as Mr Turgul is with script mathematics he is just as unimaginative and lacks creativity when it comes to tuning that mathematics with great story lines, engaging characters and witty developments. Unfortunately he keeps repeating himself and regardless of whether he is writing about an old time bandit (eskiya), a teacher who has returned to his Istanbul home after years at Anatolia outskirts (gönül yarası), a Mafioso who still embraces old ethic codes like a samurai (kabadayı) or as with this picture about a forensic chief he is depending on the same main character and similar web of story lines. Every main character Mr Turgul created since Eskiya have been the same and unfortunately he alone has access to Turkey's tour de force actor Sener Sen. The acting and directing in the movie has been the most disappointing aspects of the picture for me: at times the acting is raw, at times authentic and at other times comical (Çetin Tekindor's delivery of last lines). The Turkish media and critics that is composed of a few monkeys scratching each other's back and never writing anything bad about bad movies made by influential people has of course spoken of this picture too as a 'masterpiece'. Unfortunately it is not! Especially the acting of Cem Yılmaz, a loved persona by myself too, doesn't get better than any of the characters from Turkish police TV series such as Arka Sokaklar. The storyline never gets interesting or clever. At an age when CSI and similar TV series are putting such emphasis on the storyline, Hunting Season manages to be as interesting as an episode of CSI NY, and nothing more. Compared to Millennium Trilogy it is a movie for people who have no idea about the genre. The music selection was good but Mr Turgul has for the first time agonized me with his use of music as a mood pusher. The music always makes itself more than apparent! Which is very sad as the use of music has always been one of Mr Turgul's strenghts. Editing and the overly washed light footage are other inconsistent elements of the movie. At times the editing reminds one of Svankmayer's pieces: creating an alter persona through blurring of images and movement of the camera close to the face however this (as with Tekindor's last scene) makes the movie more comical than anything! The worst aspect yet of the movie was the unnecessary voice over! If anyone catches the meaning of that voice over please explain as all it did was push feelings down the throat of the audience in arabesque ways and it didn't even have a finely tuned closure. 5 stars for what Mr Turgul means to Turkish Cinema and regardless of how disappointing he has been still the contribution Cem Yılmaz will have to the same art.