From a technical standpoint, 'The mountain' ('Dag') is pretty great. The filming locations provide us with outstanding natural beauty to enjoy with image quality that is crisp and clear. Sound design is likewise pristine. Blood effects and makeup, wardrobe, and props all look good. I think the chief actors are fine. I also admire the core concept of the film: Two soldiers, at odds with one another, are forced to work together when a routine mission goes far astray under adverse conditions high on a mountain.

I admit I was curious to watch in no small part because the root premise reminded me, superficially, of the 'Star Trek: Deep Space 9' episode 'The ascent' - two generally opposed individuals, working in common cause. With that central focus in mind, I think writer-director Alper Çaglar guides his small primary cast into some neatly arranged scenes, and captures some particularly swell shots. If 'The mountain' were tightly focused on the active narrative, it would have benefited greatly.

Unfortunately, that's not what we actually get. The film's original score is frankly over the top, adding grossly dramatic flair that's overwrought and overbearing. Frequent flashback scenes provide unnecessary background for protagonists Oguz and Bekir in past moments that are dubious at best, maudlin at worst, and mostly just awkward or counterproductive. Dialogue commonly includes absolutely superfluous, tasteless homophobic slurs, and where it isn't concentrated on the plot atop the mountain it broadly echoes the same tawdry slant. The rare kernel of profundity that 'The mountain' has to impart is lost, subsumed amidst gaudy embellishment and otherwise poor writing so garish as to be grotesque.

As if all this weren't bad enough, the picture is saturated through and through with grandstanding so horridly heavy-handed as to be arrogant. Patriotism! National pride! Service! Army, hoo-rah! Such blatantly kitschy pretension would be direly unwelcome and deservedly criticized in a Hollywood blockbuster; for a different country's military to be the apple of a feature's eye is no better. A few key words come to mind, like haughty, condescending, stuffy, uptight, smug, and obnoxious. Blech!

It's a shame, really. 'The mountain' could have been a short film of certainly no more than half its final length of 90 minutes without meaningfully sacrificing any substance. That short could easily be a plainspoken survival thriller - further cut or simply revise a great deal of dialogue, do some pick-up shots focused on the core premise - presto, a winner. That short could also easily maintain the spirit of what the full-length feature represents; careful writing, editing, sequencing, and overall consideration would have allowed for much more sparing use of flashback scenes to be significantly more impactful, and for what wisdom the screenplay has to convey to readily flourish.

But that hypothetical short is not what 'The mountain' is. The execution is dressed up so ostentatiously as to be vulgar. The fundamental story beats of the active plot are great, and the technical craft is on point; for this, I wish I could say I like the movie more than I do. Yet almost everything else is questionable in the least, and emphatically dispensable at worst, making me wonder I'm not being too generous as it is in how I regard the final product.

If you can't get enough of go-getter, chest-beating, jingoistic military bravado, and you don't care about how overblown or tacky it may be - well done, this is the movie for you. For anyone else, I can't think of a situation in which I'd recommend 'The mountain.'

It had potential. That potential was wasted.

Attracted by the high rating (7.6 at the time being) I watched this film which was probably mostly intended for Turkisch audiences. That was what made interesting for me: it gives some insight in the mentality of nowadays Turkey and it's attitude towards it's army. That attitude is very dualistic: on one side both protagonists are not happily becoming / being soldiers and life as a soldier on a mountaintop is not really glamorized, on the other side there is still the heroic dying ("where one will die a thousand will rise") and the father figure type commanders. On one side it is a modern, America type film on the other side quite dramatic and melancholic, which is maybe very Turkish.

The visuals of the mountain landscape are beautiful, the characters are interesting, there is humor. The downside is that the military action is either quite unrealistic or Turkish soldiers are criminally lousy trained: going into a building in enemy territory WITHOUT taking your gun with you? You are almost out of ammunition and you do NOT take the AK 47 of the enemy you just killed? Take a rest in the snow and not on the nearby rocks where you are not such an easy target? I have never been a soldier but have seen enough war movies to know that these are not clever actions. The two protagonists pay dearly for these mistakes so the director was at least aware of that.

This exciting film is about the harrowing attempts at survival of two Turkish soldiers during a harsh blizzard near a communications station in volatile southeastern Turkey.

Ambushed, with limited ammunition and without their commanding officers the two main characters, yuppie Oguz and the ill-educated streetwise Bekir, two young universally conscripted soldiers who dislike each other, it is well acted, well filmed and with a fresh unique premise.

Filmed in a war documentary style with a minimalist but inventive approach it's a brutal, touching and visually striking story with situations observing courage under fire as well as the social divides in a uniquely militaristic country such as Turkey.

Succeeding well beyond the producer's expectations, it probably is the most original and unexpected success in an otherwise dry Turkish film season.