#TheWaterDiviner #EnglishHollywoodFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating: * * 1/2

#TheWaterDiviner #EnglishHollywoodFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas #Rating: * * 1/2

    

#PicksAndPiques/SnippetFilmReview 17thApril2015/#JohnsonThomas

      

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#PicksAndPiques/SnippetFilmReview17thApril2015/#JohnsonThomas

 

#MrX (Hindi) Rating: * * plying the #MrIndia trick but without any thrills or excitement. Quite a bizarre mix of intrigue, romance and puckered investigation.   #VikramBhatt #MukeshBhatt #EmraanHashmi #VisheshFilms #FoxStarFilms  #AmryaDastur #ArunodaySingh #HemanshuMestry

 

#Best #Court(Marathi/Hindi/Gujrati/English) Rating: * * * *  Topical contentious issues woven into a simple yet stirring narrative framed by punctuating irony. Excellent gritty realistic performances and sterling direction makes you sit up and take notice. #ChaitanyaTamhane and #VivekGomber are guys to watch out for...Get Courting fast! #ParullGossain #ChaitanyaTamhane #VivekGomber #RamKondilkar

 

#Best #MargaritaWithAStraw( Hindi/English) Rating: * * * It’s got a one point agenda –to humanize the differently abled( most specifically those affected by cerebral palsy). With not much of a story to tell, the film does it by showing the central character indulging in sexual acts. Despite the implausibility and disbelief that evokes there’s more than ample moments to affect and involve you. Performances are the key here.  #SpicePR #ShonaliBose #NileshManiyar #KalkiKoechlin #SayaniGupta #Revathy #Viacom18 #Lakhotia #IshanTalkies

 

#NanakShahFakir(Hindi) Rating: * * ½ Pious and respectful of GuruNanakji’s preachings, this biopic on one of the pre-eminent Gurus of the Sikh faith, has the production values,  orchestral score,scale and dimensions to be epical but the lethargic and compromised treatment doesn’t allow for any great involvement. #RenukaGuptaPR #GurbaniMediaPvtLtd #AAFilmsNationwide

 

#NH8RoadToNidhivan(Hindi) Rating: * ½  Using a found footage template , the wrong way, this horror flick is shaky, dark(minimal lighting), implausible and incoherent. Repetitive dialogues and hyperventilating performances don’t lend any grip either. #WhiteLion #RomanaRaz #MunindraGupta #MGFilms #GarageProductions #NiharikaJha

 

#EkAdbhutDakshinaGurudakshina(Hindi) Rating: * * A meandering social drama pitting love & betrayal against duty, this one prolongs the agony through unnecessary subplots and silly dialogues. #HimanshuJhunjhunwala #DwaparPromoters #MoonwalkProductions  #GirishKarnad #RupaGanguly #RajeevPillai #SulagnaPanigrahi #RajeshShrinagarpure #AayushPhadnis #EshaanPhadnis

 

#TheWaterDiviner(English) Rating: * * ½  A fantasy woven around the #WorldWarI #BattleForGalipoli, this film flashes back and forth from past to present in a time fudge that leaves you largely unsettled and disinterested. Well intentioned but laborious!  #HardlyAnonymous #RusselCrowe #OlgaKurylenko #YilmazErdogan #CemYilmaz #JaiCourtney #RyanCorr #BenOToole #JamesFraser

English film review

Johnson Thomas

A flaky memorial

Film: The Water Diviner

Cast: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Ryan Corr, Jai Courtney,Yilmaz Erdogan, Cem Yilmaz, Steve Bastoni

Director: Russell Crowe

Rating: * * ½

Runtime: 112 mins

 

Synopsis:

Starring Russell Crowe (GLADIATOR, A BEAUTIFUL MIND) and Olga Kurylenko (OBLIVION, QUANTUM OF SOLACE), THE WATER DIVINER is an epic adventure set four years after the devastating battle of Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. Australian farmer Connor (Crowe) travels to Istanbul to discover the fate of his sons, reported missing in the action, where he forges a relationship with the beautiful Turkish woman (Kurylenko) who owns the HOTEL in which he stays. Holding on to hope, and with the help of a Turkish Officer, Connor embarks on a journey across the country to find the truth about the fate of his sons.

 

Review:

The film is inspired by true events – A Melbourne-based scribe, Andrew Anastasios found a letter from one Cyril Hughes, a high-ranking officer responsible for recovering and interring the Diggers from the abandoned battlefield via the Imperial War Graves Unit, wherein there  was an oblique mention of a father from Australia who came all the way to Gallipoli, turkey looking  for his son’s grave. Unable to find any other details about the father, Anastasios teamed up with scriptwriter Andrew Knight, decided to invent the movie’s far-fetched tale and pitched it to Crowe.

In 1919, four years after the disastrous Australian defeat at the WWI battle of Gallipoli, a father travels to the Ottoman Empire hoping to find his lost sons. The story is a little too stretched out and unbelievable as Russell Crowe transforms himself from water diviner to dead body diviner-albeit that of his own flesh. Russell Crowe as director, goes to ridiculous lengths to anoint this faux legend as a memorial to those who lost their lives at the Battle of Gallipoli, World War I.

 

An  indistinct cocktail of war film and cross-cultural family melodrama, “The Water Diviner” is an ambitious film in scope but does not amount to that much in execution. Russell Crowe directs his  first major feature to mixed results.  Playing the titular Australian farmer he crafts the film to play to his strengths as opposed to exposing the facts and truths about the war.  The old chap in the letter, takes the form of Joshua Connor, a farmer who spends his postwar days remembering adventures, including a dangerous dust storm, with his now-lost sons Arthur (Jack Patterson, later Ryan Corr), Henry (Ben Norris/Ben O’Toole) and Edward (Aidan Smith/James Fraser). When his grief-stricken wife Eliza(Jacqueline McKenzie) taks her own life, Joshua embarks on the journey to bring his boys back to lay them besides his wife in their hometown grave. it’s a three-month long journey to Constantinople where he is

rebuffed by British officer Brindley (Dan Wyllie) in his request to visit the battlefield. On his way out an urchin, Orhan (Dylan Georgiades)  steals his bag and leads him a merry chase all the way to his family owned hotel run by his mother Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), and conservative uncle Omer (Steve Bastoni). Joshua promptly books a room for stay and slowly develops a bond with the young kid whose father is reported missing in the same war.

On Ayshe’s instructions, Joshua finds a fisherman willing to ferry him to the Gallipoli beachhead. Crowe wades ashore to the astonishment of Hughes (Jai Courtney), who is coordinating the recovery effort,  alongside known enemies ,Turkish war vets Major Hasan and Sgt. Jemal (Yilmaz Erdogan and Cem Yilmaz).

Crowe is on a surer footing when he is depicting war time adventure. The early sequences with his sons flash through too soon for much impact. The flashback to the battle that killed his sons is brutal and stark, playing repeatedly as Crowe tries to divine the location of their bodies. Connor himself gets caught in the middle of a fight between the Turks and the invading Greeks. It’s a tense suspenseful moment. The script, by Andrew Knight and Anastasios, relies heavily on fictional coincidence and executable convenience, giving the narrative a perfunctory, fake feel. Connor’s diving powers look silly and the use of the ‘Arabian nights’ to link the past with the present, doesn’t really amount to much. Shock cuts, loud sound bytes and disruptive flashbacks put paid to focus and flow. This is by no means an enriching experience –merely an artificially sweetened one!

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