Written by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios
Starring Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Yilmaz Erdogan and Jai Courtney
An Australian man travels to Turkey after World War I to search for his three sons who went missing during the Battle of Gallipoli.
In his feature length, narrative film directorial debut, Russell Crowe goes all in with this ambitious, large scale story. The passion behind this project is easily seen through every scene and is actually rather informative on the topic of World War I and the battles between Australian and Turkish (or Ottoman) soldiers.
Though the main storyline of a father searching for his sons is captivating enough, the writers decided to propel the story forward with the inclusion of a romantic interest. Despite their best efforts, the attempt to raise the stakes with the addition of a woman fell short and only proved to be a slow moving distraction and a campy side story.
The film was like a roller coaster of quality. It started off extremely strong, then fell to into dullness. The pattern repeated throughout, unfortunately ending with a boring, eye-roller of a scene. It was as though Russell Crowe and the writer's wanted to add too much story that was unnecessary and negated the emotional impact of prior sequences.
For his first film as a director, Russell Crowe could have done much worse. And his ambition will prove to be an important asset with his later films. As much as I like him as an actor, I feel he should stay out of his own movies or at the very least take a smaller role. I would imagine wearing two hats only hinders his potential.
My Rating: 6.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment