6
If one doesn't know the story of the Battle of Gallipoli, a person can be fairly helpless insofar as trying to understand what in hell is going on from one scene to the next. Questions such as who are the enemy and who are the good guys and can willows or metal coat hangers used to find water in the parched desert lands of Australia really be used to find the dead buried in a war zone on the other side of the planet, or at least what is left of them? Wars are made up of good and bad guys or so we are told by politicians, historians and just about everybody else who has a stake in any particular war. In this story it seems to be the Australians who are the good or bad guys, depending on your point of view, at other times it's the Turks, other times the Greeks (?) or the Sufi Whirling Dervishes (didn't know they loved war) This is just strange strange stuff and difficult to follow, rather like what is going on in Iraq/Syria/Afghanistan/et al today, a free-for-all of sorts. Those people really love their wars, no doubt. Or perhaps the message I'm supposed to take home is that there are no good or bad guys in wars, only stupid little men going off to slaughter each other in the name of this or that cause, religion, or whatever. I mean, why not? Men are still doing idiotic things like that today and they'll never learn, sadly enough. The story, while noble, can run a little thin at times since you already know the plot which is fully spelled out in the Info section of this website's movie ads so you can't blame this reviewer for spoiling the story. I found myself hoping that Crowe'd find his children sooner rather than later and I could go home, with the message. To make the film a complete loss, some idiot was kicking the back of my chair. Where do Dumbo's like that get off and where are the ushers at times like this? Lol!