This is another one of those Turkish made Superhero/Supervillain ultra low budget knockoff quickies to recently find their way onto DVD due to an indie company called Onar Films, who do a marvelous job of resurrecting the universally tattered & unkempt surviving elements with an English subtitles track that is sometimes hilarious all on it's own. In the spirit of the jaw- droppingly outrageous KILINK ISTANBUL'DA, DEMIR PENCE concerns itself with two masked adversaries -- one fighting for justice, the other a nefarious criminal -- who do battle with the fate of Turkey & the entire world at stake.
This one is perhaps a bit more brutal than most, with less emphasis on the comic book zaniness of KILINK and more on gunfights, fistfights, people being tied up & menaced, and - - interestingly -- nightclub routines and belly dancing. The main claim to fame for this one is that it brings in the legendary Fantamos, based on the French graphic pulp novel hero of the same name. He even has a big menacing goon henchman with an iron claw for a hand that may or may not have anticipated the James Bond "Jaws" character (his indestructibility is one of the film's running jokes). And like "Batman" and his Batgirl, our hero Demir rides around in a leather costume on a motorbike with their capes flapping in the wind behind them.
The story is nearly incomprehensible, which is why I am not mentioning much of it, and instead the visceral pleasure of the movie's individual moments is where the payoff lies: Bizarre fight sequences, frantic chase scenes, diabolical dramatics and derring-do galore abound, though the body count in this one is somewhat high. But it's fast paced, amusingly staged in a manner that might otherwise be thought of as inept, and filled with moments of absolute kitsch -- like the band of goons working for Fantomas who all run around with a giant F on their black turtlenecks. In any event it's involving, very cult-appeal oriented fun with just a hint of S&M kink and a marvelous villain in the scheming Fantomas.
8/10: Packs ten times the imagination & wit of the current BATMAN film, and I mean that.
