netflix says In good hands 2 is “the sequel to the 2022 hit” In good hands,” which, well, sure, it’s right there in the title, but what exactly does “hit” mean? Did it make its way to Netflix’s Top 10? Did you get an international audience? Was it widely seen in your native country, Türkiye? Who knows. However, some Netflix counters determined that it received enough eyeballs to justify investing in a sequel, even though the first film’s plot killed off its protagonist: It was the story of a terminally ill single mother who tracks down her former caddish and drops the bomb that he is the biological father of her six-year-old son. The film was a somewhat watchable melodrama with some extravagant buts, but it didn’t deserve a recommendation, so we hope that this continuation of the story will right the ship a little.
IN GOOD HANDS 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Melisa died a year ago, and her son and father have been living sadly since then. Young Can (Mert Ege Ak) lives with his father, Firat (Kaan Urgancioglu), and the boy has practically everything he could want, at least materially speaking. And even that has its limitations, because in Can’s elaborate backyard clubhouse, the boy is building a time machine so he can go back and tell his mother that he loves her in the hopes that doing so will cure her and she won’t. will die. Keep in mind, this could be heartbreaking if it weren’t such a necessary Hokey movie premise writ large, but all we can do is move on. Can and Firat are fighting. The boy misbehaves at school and the other students make fun of him. Meanwhile, Firat deals with his emotions by participating in a not particularly funny running prank that requires him to drink too much and wake up on the grass the next morning. There is affection between Firat and Can, but the boy has not yet called him “dad.” He’s just not there yet, and that’s understandable.
One day, our two boys are sitting in a cafe when they meet Sezen (Melisa Pamuk). Actually, let me rephrase that: They’re being loud and bothering her and she tells them off in a pretty lame way that involves telling Can that time machines don’t exist. It seems like a pretty bold introduction, but movie characters like this don’t just show up with their tough pragmatism and then walk away. No, she shows up later, when Firat is completely drunk in a bar and she gets him out of there before he embarrasses himself even more. They form a connection because she used to be like Firat, but now she is teetotal; On top of that, she’s sad because she misses her brother, who went to college in the United States, and if that’s not as bad as losing the mother of her son to a terminal illness, well, pretty bad. close, I guess. Firat and Sezen have a little date and when they end up taking off their clothes at her house, he sees a scar on her back and they share her sadness. Everyone has scars, you know, whether they’re literal or symbolic.
Meanwhile, we can’t help but wonder what happens to Can when the script isn’t interested in her, that is, while Firat is out drinking, dating, and the like. Well, I think he’s being taken care of by Melisa’s friend Fatos (Ezgi Senler), a character from the previous film who exists in this film to do whatever is necessary, because he apparently doesn’t have a job or a life of his own? At least once in a while she says almost funny things. Anyway, Can isn’t so sure about letting a new mother into his life (again, he’s not there yet, and that’s understandable) until the ridiculous scene where Sezen visits him at school and sprays his thug with a hose. I mean, the bully just stands there and lets himself get soaked instead of, you know, getting out of the way. So Sezen is winning over Can a bit. But what about Firat’s drinking and her insecurity, and the mother randomly utters the script? She has a lot to work on and one can’t help but wonder one more thing: will this film include the scene in which the alcoholic participates in the ceremonial Dumping Of The Booze Bottles? NO SPOILERS, but yes, probably.
What movies will it remind you of?: I don’t know, people were smart enough not to do Terms of endearment 2 either sweet December either Die younger (either Die even younger).
Performance worth seeing: I liked Pamut’s performance in this film: her charismatic screen presence sometimes transcends the mediocre material, but the hose scene (and, frankly, most of the third act) is too much of an uphill climb for anyone.
Memorable dialogue: It can become literal and metaphorical when confronting Firat: “You stink when you drink.”
Sex and skin: None, really. The Scars Reveal scene is very, very tame.
Our opinion: The first film had to fall into a huge soap opera twist in the third act, and the sequel follows the same formula. I didn’t believe any of this implausible and sentimental nonsense, and neither will you. Before that, In good hands 2 showed good intentions, establishing a dynamic that emphasized character development over plot, enough to encourage us to weather irritating scenes of childish precocity and exaggerated drunkenness. There were moments when Firat, Can and Sezen felt like real people with real problems rather than movie characters with contrived problems, but in the end, director Ketche and writer Hakan Bonomo (who also collaborated on the first film ) opt for a bloated melodrama rather than anything like that. reality.
Perhaps the film tries to do too much, incorporating romance into a father-son story, allowing for a substance abuse subplot, hinting at and eventually exploring Sezen’s trauma, including Firat’s mother in a couple of scenes and doing the same. whatever he does with Fatos’ character (who is essentially nothing; his potential functionality as comic relief never bears any fruit). It’s admirable how Ketche aims for a moving mix of comedy and drama, but how to achieve it seems uncertain. Do you want to be crazy? Do you want to be sexy? Want to explore ideas about grief, loss, and redemption? Ostensibly, the film is about Firat’s struggle to see himself as a worthy father, but that central idea is unfocused and torpedoed by clichés (when we get to the moment where he makes a drunken speech at a birthday party, you’ll tune out emotionally). Maybe a more simplified approach would have worked, but In good hands 2 It suffers the same fate as its predecessor: its many elements never come together as an observable whole.
Our call: Second verse, more or less the same as the first. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
