Very effective juxtaposition of emotions in a visually captivating piece of very good story-telling

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2015)

Perhaps it is not a huge achievement to make a good film out of spectacular locations, one of the most notorious battles in history (and the First World War in general), and the histories of Australia and post-WWI Turkey, but - hey - half the battle in the film industry is finding the kernel of a new good story for a movie and actually going on to make something out of it. Notwithstanding the issues of flawed detail that experts rightly take note of, this is a gritty film that looks and feels right, offers an appropriate range of emotions and settings (both domestic and a million miles from domestic), and acknowledges the truth that Turkey in 1919 was an extremely "fascinating" place to be. The opportunity to contrast the existence of a small-time farmer from the Outback with the life and culture of a huge city straddling two continents that had half a million inhabitants by AD600 is not lost. There is also a refreshing honesty as regards the balancing of enmity and reconciliation in the wake of a battle that cost the lives of seven times as many defending Turks as attacking Australians and New Zealanders. If there is a flaw here, it is the renewed attempt to portray the Brits (with one noble and notable exception) as starchy, out of touch sticklers quite distinct from the matey and down-to-earth Aussies. This is the kind of thing we have seen far, far too often before, and it is well past its sell-by date. With this proviso, this (British) reviewer was impressed and moved by the beauty, authenticity and simple power of this well-done and mostly well-acted piece of work. Yilmaz Erdogan as the senior Turkish officer and would-be pioneer of Turkish nationalism is the undoubted star of the piece, but Crowe, Kurylenko, Courtney and Yilmaz all give us our money's worth, as does the entirely convincing boy-actor Dylan Georgiades.