This is perhaps Çağan Irmak's best movie to date - an anti-romantic drama set in and around Beyoğlu that ostensibly analyzes the crisis of contemporary masculinities, but ends up showing how self- interested people actually are.Alper (Cemal Hünal) is a successful chef with a penchant for collecting 80s pop LPs. In public he comes across as a generous, though perfectionist boss; in private he lives a life of solitude and self-interest, as he regularly haunts out local whores for a spot of S&M. Into his life comes Ada (Melis Birkan), a clothes-shop owner who initially rejects him but responds eventually to his persistent advances. The two of them fall in love but inevitably the affair ends in tears.That is the entire plot of the movie; but nonetheless Irmak retains our interest by making telling thematic points. Alper's fondness for 80s music is part of his conquest strategy; chat the girl up, take her home, cook her a meal, put on some soft music and sexual success will inevitably follow. Unable - or is it unwilling - to acknowledge his true feelings, he inhabits a mental prison, despite his conquests. This is suggested through a regular use of shots showing him driving a car through the streets of İstanbul, with the camera outside focusing on his expression behind the wind-shield. On other occasions Irmak uses prison-images - for example, photographing Alper in close-up behind a metal bed-head, with iron bars obscuring his face. The film's narrative unfolds in a series of two-shots and shot/reverse shots, which might suggest a concentration on character. However Irmak intersperses these shots with a series of jump-cuts - for example, when Alper prepares his dinner, or when Ada cooks breakfast one morning after a night of sexual passion. This technique suggests that the protagonists are somehow in a hurry; they want to get as quickly as possible through their daily rituals so that they can move on to something else. They cannot reflect on their emotions or their feelings towards one another.The final sequence is particularly memorable. Ada and Alper re- encounter one another in Beyoğlu: by now Ada is married to someone else, while Alper is still isolated. As they exchange banalities with one another, we hear their true feelings expressed in voice-over. We learn from Ada that she has a memory of her time with Alper - a 45 rpm record that she took from his mother's house - that Alper knows nothing about. Here is the true source of nostalgia; not necessarily a mood, or a piece of music, but an object that recalls the past. Alper can, and never will, discover how this works, being too much concerned with himself alone.

I have not seen much Turkish cinema, except the classic ones (e.g. Guney). However, I recently watched several modern Turkish films, including some excellent ones, such as Gegen die Wand, 3 Monkeys and Babam Ve Oglum, and nationalist rubbish, such as Kurtlar vadisi and Son Osmanli Yandim Ali. I had great expectations for "Issiz adam", because it was signed by the same director who shot "Babam Ve Oglum", which I consider a masterpiece. I was surprised to see a commonplace love story, with nothing special or original. The story was conventional, cinematography was poor and the acting was awful. Okay, Hunal was adequate, but Birkan was completely ridiculous, with this shining, happy-to-be-bride face. The main characters were just caricatures: the professionally successful, heartless, lonely male, who has never known any type of love (come on, at this age?), except temporary relations with whores and the modern, pretty and unpredictable female, who falls in love and behaves like a moron. I do not blame Alper for leaving Ada, I would have left much earlier! The whole movie sucks, but some points were completely funny, such as the close relation of the "bride" with the mother-in-law, which was preserved several years afterward!! It is a pity that a great director like Irmak, spent his potential to produce a cheap drama, just to gain some money from soap opera watchers.

What I heard from most watchers is that everybody found somethings from their own life in Issiz Adam. They say that the movie is amazing just because catches you from your heart and mind like it tells your own life but not Alper and Ada's.To be honest, I definitely do not have the same feeling. What I think is that the movie is purely simple and that is why everybody finds somethings in it. Most of us try to find the real meaning of the scenes, speeches etc in movies but with Issiz Adam; many people do overlook while trying to find somethings deep.I could not understand what Alper wants also why his actions are always fulsome. What he wants and why? You find no answer in the movie. On the other hand, Ada looks like well experienced on relations with men but how she could fall in love with that bombastic guy? Can we just say that "because the love is somethings like this"? Sorry I do not agree.Well, besides the story and acting, the scenes and songs are really beautiful. So I recommend this movie to the lovers of oldies and to the people who feel lonely in their life.

Irmak, tries to demonstrate a modern love (probably well-known) story intensely based on a specific area in İstanbul, which is heavily focused on the dramatic final scene and wholly torn between. As well as being stuck between Turkish traditional (Yesilcam movies)and European&American movie perceptions, the dialogs of Alper and Ada (main characters) are also stuck between being superficial and literal. Maybe,the best way of the movie is especially and successfully chosen (far from reflecting the common) places and music of the movie which appeal mainly to the Turkish audience. Though it is far from being a masterpiece in Turkish movie history with its familiar story, it could be considered as a footstep in the transforming Turkish cinema at least technically.