The Water Diviner

This is Russell Crowe's first attempt as a directors and probably his last.His directing is amateur to say the least.

I don't care how real or unreal this movie is, no one should have to kill their own brother. This movie was starting to bore me until I saw this scene, then the movie took a complete turn and stirred up all the emotion I felt throughout the film that had started to go away.

Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) is an Australian farmer who lost his three sons in the Battle of Gallipoli. Four years later, his wife Eliza dies and he vows to bring his sons home to be buried next to their mother.

So, we have an Australian superhero who, being a humble peasant and family man in his homeland travels to Turkey in the years after WWI in search for his disappeared sons, and once there he manages to: 1) get to the place of the Gallipoli battle and find the exact place where two of his sons were killed and lie under ground, all thanks to the seeming extrasensorial faculties he possesses, 2) again with some extrasensorial help (intuition will say some...) find his third son alive in a remote village, 3) allow the escape of a foe-turned-friend Turkish military official from a fully armed squad of Greek soldiers using a wicket to fight them, and 4) beat up a group of members of a Turkish family clan one of whose members had been previously insulted by our protagonist (this time he was barehanded and the ones using sticks were the rivals).

This film is not as good as some WW1 classics such as 1918, Gallipoli, or Paths of Glory, but it certainly places fourth on that short list. This is a very nice effort by Russell Crowe, with a lot of help from a talented supporting cast and a very interesting script.

For me, directorial debut of Russell Crowe and his attempt to tell a tale of war, tragedy, loss, romance and healing was quite long, clichéd, uneven and unsatisfying movie experience. He also, as a main character, seems to be blessed with some mystical power.

First of all the film is beautiful, full marks for cinematography. For me this is Russell Crowe's directorial debut and it shows.

"Are there any more records about my son? We are Ottomans, not Germans.

In 1981 the film "Gallipoli" was released, and even then some reviewers complained of bias, but that film and this one are clearly anti-war films based on the tragic waste of lives that was the World War I battle of Gallipoli. Blessedly, this film concentrates not on battle but on the quest of one man to find his three sons after the war.