The fact that 10 Days of a Good Man feels so similar to many other hard-boiled detective stories still means there are reliable thrills to be had here for fans of the genre. But twists and turns and a suitably gruff lead performance by Nejat Isler can't make up for how the film seems so convinced of its own coolness. The more that they emphasize that Sadik is really a modest kind of tough guy with a big heart and an energy that just seems to draw women and dangerous people towards him, the more insincere it comes across. And as the convoluted central mystery continues to pile on details without engaging in much actual investigation, the more the whole thing feels like posturing to champion a very traditional and superficial idea of masculinity that Sadik embodies.

Unsurprisingly, (some of) the women in the story wind up being more interesting because they're more flawed. Even as the film seems to deliberately position them in contrast with Sadik's righteous toughness, they still manage to point towards a more complicated and more human world just beyond the edges of the frame. For example, Hatice/Pinar, the teenage sister of the missing young man, seems to operate according to her own sense of grey morality: she's happy to assist in the investigation but only for a price, and the way she carries herself connotes an awareness of how young women like her are perceived—and how they might use that to their advantage.