The Top Scorer

Kartal Tibet's 1980 comedy is among the most frequently rerun of Kemal Sunal's films. Sait takes up football to get the attention of Sevim, a football enthusiast; when she mocks him he digs in and decides to become a player for real. The standard Yeşilçam formula is transplanted to sport here: the man everyone assumes is useless rises on the anger of being underestimated. The comedy rests largely on Sunal's physical timing and on the accidental humour of pitch scenes shot with amateur means. The film has documentary value for anyone wanting to see what football meant as a fantasy of class mobility in Turkey at the time. The technical limits of Yeşilçam's last years before 1980 are equally visible: sound recording, editing and crowd scenes are all perfunctory. Who it's for: viewers interested in Kemal Sunal comedies and in Yeşilçam's football films. Who it's not for: anyone expecting technical competence, or who will find the period's treatment of women characters uncomfortable.