An Australian man travels to Turkey after the Battle of Gallipoli to try and locate his three missing sons.
Although it might be a little dry for some tastes, The Water Diviner marks Crowe out as a director of promise, and affords him a decent starring role to boot.
It’s an odd mix of Saving Private Ryan odyssey and romantic melodrama. It has sincerity, sensitivity and is often ravishing to look at but is let down by a chocolate box love story. Still, Crowe still might have a Braveheart/Dances With Wolves in him yet.
Making his first shot at feature direction, Russell Crowe homes in on a key trauma in Aussie history and brings it vividly to life. Shame about the clichés.
A self-conscious, underpowered Crowe plays an Australian man looking for his missing sons after Gallipoli in this well-intentioned, laborious movie.
Crowe is trying to make a David Lean-style epic about war, love and loss but the film is too stuttering and melodramatic ever fully to take wing.
Sometimes it works but more often it just feels corny and obvious.
The picture is an ambitious period drama, intriguingly set during the break-up of the Ottoman empire, and almost oppressively sad.
Russell Crowe spoils arresting cinematography and an effecting story of a father’s grief in Gallipoli with a ludicrous tacked-on romance.
Crowe favours classically composed shots – some of them beautiful – that tell the story cleanly and effectively, if not always in the most exciting fashion.
Sadly, it's only the ludicrous moments that really stay with you.
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General release. Check local listings for show times.
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