Netflix’s “The Fix-It Man” is a wholesome watch that shows how the car-painting business of two mechanics/bodymen undergoes a radical change after the death of an old man. While the story has its twists and turns. It is the meaning that lies underneath the story that has the most impact. One might say that the twists and the plot go hand in hand as each addresses the importance of the other, not just in the film but in life as well. Here’s more on “The Fix-It Man.”
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘The Fix-It Man’?
When Yilmaz and Müjdat hid the dead body of their old neighbor Mr. Vamik [who died of a stroke in front of them] inside a turpentine barrel, the solution that formed gave their paint a whole new effect. Their friend and business partner Ayhan suggests using the technique to make more money, i.e., digging up a dead body (the effect of one body remaining only on one car), drowning it in turpentine, using the mixture to paint the car, and then returning the dead body to the ground. While Yilmaz is completely against it, when Aynur, the girl he has feelings for, loses her eyesight in an accident, he decides to use the technique to collect the money [$500,000] needed for her eye transplant. Is he successful in the endeavor? “The Fix-It Man” has the answer.
The Twist
When Yilmaz and Müjdat get compromised after Mr. Vamik dies in front of them, they bring Vamik’s body to their garage rather than taking it to the hospital. They tell Ayhan that Vamik’s had turned cold, and perhaps they didn’t want to risk getting into any trouble, so they brought him there. Müjdat is the more offbeat of the two and suggests to Yilmaz that they can hide the body in the turpentine barrel, hoping that it will dissolve the body. Yilmaz mocks Müjdat’s suggestion but ends up following it as someone knocks on the main door, only to find out that it is Ayhan. After Yilmaz completes a paint job and they bury Vamik’s body, the car reveals a whole new shade, unlike anything they had ever seen before.
It is Ayhan who deduces that the blood and Sulphur, which start to accumulate in the body after a person dies, are absorbed by the turpentine, which then gives the paint such an unusual shade. But once the blood and Sulphur die out, the effect also disappears. This is why one can only use one dead body to paint one car. Be that as it may, Yilmaz is not keen on using this technique to make money. However, he ends up opting for it as he needs to collect money for Aynur’s eye transplant in the US (more on this in the next paragraph). But we have to accept that they came to know of this technique by chance. They had no idea that turpentine, blood, and Sulphur could give their paint a new shade. They didn’t expect Mr. Vamik to die in front of them and had absolutely no idea what to do with him. What seemed to be a ludicrous idea in Müjdat’s head turned into a rather convenient source of income.
For The Sake Of Love
Yilmaz had feelings for young Aynur for a long time but never opened up to her about them, probably because he was too old for her. However, this didn’t stop him from loving her all the same. We see this in the way he speaks to Aynur when she brings her car to the shop, accompanied by her rich friend Meral. Yilmaz shares his feelings with Müjdat, who reassures him that one day they will be together. When he finds out about Aynur’s accident, he blames himself for her state. She had come to him to get her brakes fixed, but Yilmaz had found that there was nothing wrong with them.
A few hours later, he learned about Aynur’s accident, which had left her blind. It is out of his love for her that he decides to do what he had been against. While we aren’t ignoring the fact that what he did was bizarre and wrong, let us look at it from his point of view. He doesn’t have a family, lives with Müjdat in the garage, and makes his living out of painting cars. How can someone like him even imagine making $500,000 like that? So he did it the only way he knew he could because it wasn’t possible by any other means. It is the thought that counts here—the thought of going beyond one’s reach for the sake of love. Granted, we wouldn’t dig up dead people for love, but we always dream of doing more for our partners, don’t we? We dream of making their dreams come true. We want to show them the world. And this is, in a way, what Yilmaz wanted to do for Aynur. He wanted to help her get her vision back so that she could see the world again and so that she could see him again, especially after he found out that she had feelings for him too.
The Second Twist
After the money Yilmaz and Müjdat had made gets stolen by a group of thugs, they, along with Ayhan, Kayhan, and Zargana, decide to get it back but fail in the endeavor. So all the money they had collected is gone [we do not know the precise amount but can assume it was around $500,000]. Yilmaz and Müjdat then sell their workshop for $500,000 to a businessman who has been trying to buy it for a long time. As the five guys are partying one night to celebrate getting their hands on the money, cops arrive asking for Mr. Vamik, who seems to be missing. The guys lie to the officer, saying they have no idea where he is. The officer then reveals that Vamik was a serial killer in hiding for the last 20 years and tells them to report to him if they come to know about Vamik. This cannot be anything other than divine intervention. They got rid of a serial killer without even knowing it. But that’s nothing compared to what happens with Yilmaz and Müjdat towards the end of the film.
‘The Fix-It Man’ Ending Explained – How Did Yilmaz Get The Money For Aynur’s Operation?
Ayhan and Kayhan take Aynur and leave with the money for her treatment in the US. Days pass, but Yilmaz is unable to contact Ayhan or Kayhan. Even so, Yilmaz and Müjdat, who are left without a workshop and a shelter, take pleasure in the fact that Aynur will be able to see again. As Yilmaz watches a television show, he recognizes one of the actors, and the shocking truth dawns on him. The actor is the doctor who informed him about Aynur’s loss of eyesight. He and Müjdat have been conned by Ayhan, Kayhan, Aynur, and Zargana. They took all the money and escaped. We then see that after Ayhan failed to convince Yilmaz to use the dead bodies to paint the cars and make money, he chalked out a plan with Kayhan, Aynur, and Zargana to do the same. They hired actors to create the scene at the accident spot, and they hired more actors to play the thugs. The money that they stole from the workshop was actually taken by Ayhan and his group.
Ayhan even convinced Aynur to play blind, as it would make it easy to convince Yilmaz to greenlight the dead-body-paint plan. But there is confusion here. We understand Ayhan and the others (Kayhan, Aynur, and Zargana) taking the money they got stolen from the workshop. But they didn’t know that Yilmaz would sell his workshop for $500,000, right? After all, there has to be a reason why Ayhan was trying to convince Yilmaz to resume work. This is because they needed more money before they could flee. Yilmaz selling the workshop for $500,000 came as a plus for them. On the other hand, if Yilmaz didn’t sell the workshop, how did Ayhan and his group intend to flee with the money they already had? We do not know. And as a matter of fact, they didn’t have to worry about it either. Ultimately, they got more than they wanted. So overall, we can say that Aynur’s eye operation may not have been a success, but the operation she carried out alongside Ayhan, Kayhan, and Zargana was a big success. They grabbed hold of the opportunity that they got and made it out successfully.
As for Yilmaz and Müjdat, who do not have anything left, they are hired by the businesswoman, not a businessman, who bought the workshop. While we do not see her face, her apparel reveals that she is none other than Aynur’s rich friend Meral. We also see multiple pairs of hands in plastic cuffs. One pair is of a woman and the other three pairs, if we look closely, are of men. Considering the businesswoman in question is Meral, we can assume that the people in cuffs are none other than Aynur, Ayhan, Kayhan, and Zargana. She has captured them and might as well have taken the money and found out about the whole plan from them. This must be why she has come to meet Yilmaz and Müjdat. She has found profit in the way the Yilmaz and Müjdat made money by digging up dead bodies, and she offers to do business with them. While the two guys clearly state that they are done with that job, we can tell that they do not need much persuasion to change their decision. So Yilmaz and Müjdat are back to where it all began: with them, a dead body, a barrel of turpentine, and a car.
The film is aptly titled “The Fix-It Man,” as our main character Yilmaz tries to fix things, and it is this attitude of his that eventually gets him into trouble and out of it. The plot begins because he painted a car using turpentine that had a dead body inside the barrel. So without him, there is no fixing. Although it would be an overstatement, we can say that he literally fixed the lives of Ayhan, Kayhan, Aynur, and Zargana. And finally, at the end of the film, his “fix” fixed his life as well as Müjdat’s.
“The Fix-It Man” is a 2023 action-comedy film directed by Erkan Kolcak Kostendil.
