Meh, rather forgettable film.**** Mild spoilers.

Rating: 6/10 (27 December 2015)

First off I'll say that I don't understand why there are so many positive reviews of this film (9's and 10's). This movie was quite predictable, and seemed it lacked serious drama and emotion. I did like the feel of the movie as far as how it looked and felt like early 1900s era, world war 1 turkey. It also has some nice shots of the Hagia Sophia and some beautiful scenes in both Istanbul/Constantinople as well as elsewhere in Turkey and in Australia. Russell Crowe was OK in it but I really don't understand how he was able to find his sons bodies, I mean I realize he can find water with dowsing rods but he wasn't using any to find the bones of his sons and it never really explained that very well. Another minor thing is Olga Kurylanko is almost to beautiful, she is already a knockout but when she looks so flawless it takes some of the believability away from a film in my opinion. I don't mind looking at her as she is stunning but she's almost a distraction from the authenticity of the film. The biggest problem I have with this film is the character development, most notably the sons that went to war. I never felt any emotion or connection with their characters as they are not given much screen time but mostly just some flashback scenes and some minor clips of them at war. It was enough to let us viewers know what happened to them but not nearly enough time to make us care about them and what they go thru. Overall This is an OK film but I wasn't moved by it and it seemed very predictable. Although it tried to make u feel certain emotions or importance in many of it's scenes it didn't seem very organic, it felt forced. Like I said it's OK but I can't really say much more then that, it wasn't awful but it's nothing I'd recommend and I think it's rather forgettable as a film.