Stream It Or Skip It: ‘In Good Hands 2’ on Netflix, a Mawkish Sequel to a Turkish Terminal-Illness Weepie

Netflix says In Good Hands 2 is “the sequel to the 2022 hit In Good Hands,” which, well, duh, it’s right there in the title, but what exactly does “hit” mean? Did it nudge its way into the Netflix Top 10? Did it earn an international audience? Was it widely watched in its native country, Turkey? Who knows. Yet some Netflix bean counter determined that it got enough eyeballs on it to justify investing in a sequel despite the fact that the first film’s plot killed off its protagonist – it was the story of a single mother with a terminal illness who tracks down her caddish ex and drops the bomb that he’s the biological father of her six-year-old son. The movie was a somewhat watchable melodrama with some wacky buts, but wasn’t quite worthy of a recommendation, so here’s hoping this continuation of the story rights the ship a bit.

IN GOOD HANDS 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Melisa died a year ago, and her son and his father are living sadly every after. Young Can (Mert Ege Ak) lives with his dad, Firat (Kaan Urgancioglu), and the kid has pretty much everything he could ever want – materially speaking, anyway. And even that has its limitations, because out in Can’s elaborate backyard clubhouse, the kid’s building a time machine so he can go back and tell his mother he loves her in the hopes that doing so will cure her and she won’t die. Please note, this might be heartbreaking if it wasn’t such a capitalization-necessary Hokey Movie Premise, but all we can do is soldier on. Can and Firat are struggling. The kid acts out at school and the other students tease him. Meanwhile, Firat deals with his emotions by participating in a not-particularly-funny running joke that requires him to drink way too much and wake up on the lawn the next morning. There’s affection between Firat and Can, but the kid has yet to call him “Dad.” He’s just not there yet, and that’s understandable.

Our two dudes are sitting in a cafe one day when they meet Sezen (Melisa Pamuk). Actually, let me rephrase that – they’re being loud and annoying her and she tells them off in a rather assholish manner that involves telling Can that time machines don’t exist. A rather audacious introduction it seems, but movie characters like this don’t just drop in with their hard pragmatism then drop out. No, she turns up later when Firat is blasted-drunk at a bar and she gets him out of there before he further embarrasses himself. They form a connection because she used to be like Firat, but now is a teetotaler; on top of that, she’s sad because she misses her brother, who went to college in the States, and if that’s not quite as bad as losing the mother of your child to terminal illness, well, close enough, I guess. Firat and Sezen go out on a little date and when they end up taking their clothes off back at her place, he sees a scar on her back and they share their sadnesses. Everyone has scars, y’know, be they literal or symbolic.

Meanwhile, we can’t help but wonder what’s up with Can when the screenplay isn’t interested in h- er, I mean, while Firat is going out drinking and dating and suchlike. Well, I think he’s being babysat by Melisa’s friend Fatos (Ezgi Senler), a character from the previous film who exists in this film to do whatever it needs her to do, because she apparently doesn’t have a job or a life of her own? At least she occasionally says almost-funny things. Anyway, Can isn’t so sure about letting a new mother figure into his life – again, he’s just not there yet, and that’s understandable – until the ridiculous scene where Sezen visits him at school and douses his bully with a hose. I mean, the bully just stands there and lets himself be drenched instead of, you know, moving out of the way. So Sezen’s winning over Can a bit. But what about Firat’s drinking, and his insecurity, and the mother issues the screenplay tosses in haphazardly? He’s got lots of stuff to work through, and one can’t help but wonder another thing: Will this movie include the scene where the alcoholic participates in the ceremonial Dumping Of The Booze Bottles? NO SPOILERS but, yeah, probably. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I dunno, people were wise enough not to make Terms of Endearment 2 or Sweet December or Dying Younger (or Dying Even Younger).

Performance Worth Watching: I liked Pamut’s performance in this movie – her charismatic screen presence transcends the lackluster material at times, but the hose scene (and frankly most of the third act) are too much of an uphill climb for anyone. 

Memorable Dialogue: Can gets literal and metaphorical when he confronts Firat: “You stink when you drink.”

Sex and Skin: None, really. The Revealing Of The Scars scene is very, very tame.

Our Take: The first movie had to drop in a whopper of an eyeroller of a soap-operatic third-act twist, and the sequel follows the same formula. I didn’t buy any of this implausible, sentimental drippery, and neither will you. Prior to that, In Good Hands 2 showed good intentions, establishing a dynamic that emphasized character development over plot, enough to encourage us to weather irritating scenes of child precociousness and overexaggerated drunkenness. There were moments where Firat, Can and Sezen felt like real people with real problems instead of movie characters with contrived problems, but ultimately, director Ketche and writer Hakan Bonomo (who also collaborated on the first film) opt for bloated melodrama instead of anything resembling reality.

Perhaps the film tries to do too much, incorporating romance into a father-son story, indulging a substance-abuse subplot, hinting at and eventually exploring Sezen’s trauma, dropping in Firat’s mother for a couple of scenes and doing whatever it does with the Fatos character (which is essentially nothing; her potential functionality as comic relief never yields any fruit). It’s admirable how Ketche aims for a poignant blend of comedy and drama, but seems uncertain as to how to achieve that. Does it want to be wacky? Does it want to be sexy? Does it want to explore ideas about grief, loss and redemption? The film’s ostensibly about Firat’s struggle to see himself as a worthy father, but that core idea is unfocused, and torpedoed by cliches (by the time we reach the moment where he delivers a drunken speech at a birthday party, you’ll be emotionally tuning out). Perhaps a more stripped-down approach would have worked, but In Good Hands 2 suffers the same fate as its predecessor: its many elements never come together as a watchable whole.  

Our Call: Second verse, pretty much the same as the first. SKIP IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.