Simple Pretty Good Story

Rating: 7/10 (26 August 2015)

An Australian Farmer, and Water Diviner, Joshua Connor (Crowe), sets out for Turkey to find and return the bodies of his 3-sons who died at Gallipoli so they can be buried in concentrated ground.
A Water Diviner can locate water, various ores and even graves. In the beginning we see Connor find water using 2-metal wands (clothes hangers will suffice) and we expect to see more magic along these lines. He gets to Gallipoli and does discover the graves of two of his sons, but not the third son. Hence the magic stops.
In his mind's eye Connor sees, the battle scenes which claimed his sons. These scenes are quite graphic and we see something we never see in movies. We see soldiers wounded and cannot move, but we hear their groans because their pain is so great. Just listening to these groans is upsetting. This showed us a side of War that we don't normally see or even consider. Until now.
There is a love interest for Connor when he sets his base of operations in a Turkish bed and breakfast hotel and here we see Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) who runs the business. Ayshe considers this Australian as the enemy and wants nothing to do with him. Of course, movie magic takes over and she warms to him. This relationship doesn't go anywhere and why it's included in the movie is not clear. A candle lighted dinner later on between these two was a bit much for something that didn't go anywhere. See?
Turkish Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) becomes Connor's guide and friend as he leads Connor to a location where Connor's third son may be alive. Along the way we see a battle with Greeks attacking the train Turkish soldiers - including Connor - are on. Keep in mind this is 1919 and the last year of the War to End all Wars. So the War is not yet over.
Overall this is pretty good mostly because of the acting performances by the entire cast and the cinematography which is very good throughout. There are elements of this being an epic, but doesn't quite make it so. We needed more magic and it didn't happen, and maybe more CGI as we saw with a humongous sandstorm in the beginning and lastly the music didn't signal epic-like proportions. This stayed as a simple pretty good story of a father trying to find his sons. (7/10)
Russell Crowe directed this movie.
Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: No.