Straddling a camera can't be easy and judging from Russell Crowe's first attempt to command both sides of the screen, it's not a decision you'd take lightly.

For his debut as director, he takes on the story of Gallipoli (an event with deep, personal resonance) in which he plays Connor, a desperate Australian searching for his sons, presumed dead, in the aftermath of World War 1. It's a journey that will take him from Victoria to Istanbul, through Gallipoli and in to the middle of a civil uprising. This is heartfelt drama played against an epic story with all the elements required for an epic film: love, loss, madness, blood lust, desperation and hope.

Having worked with some of the biggest and best, it is interesting that Crowe, along with a raft of well-connected producers, chose relative middle-weights Andrew Anastasios and Andrew Knight to write the screenplay. With one exception (1999's Siam Sunset), their background is television and that experience confines the scope of The Water Diviner. Where you expect a vast canvas and soaring emotion, you get something much closer to ABC drama: grand gestures, small moments, episodic in nature. David Hirschfelder's obvious and intrusive score only reinforces that notion.

The Water Diviner is an awkward beast, one that's too large and unwieldy for intimate drama yet too small for the enormous frame it hopes to fill. Consequently it becomes a series of vignettes bound by Connor's search, some more successful than others. Too much of the story plays out in the hotel of inevitable love interest Olga Kurylenko (Quantum Of Solace - a questionable casting choice) in contrast to Andrew Lesnie's bold cinematography that intensifies visceral combat scenes and revels in the raw beauty of Maslin Beach (subbing for Turkey). Jai Courtney (Felony) and Ryan Corr (Not Suitable For Children) lend robust support.

This bold effort by Crowe to tell a different version of events at Gallipoli may not be a great film, a long list of executives saw to that, but nor is it a particularly bad one. Among less effective scenes are moments of inspiration and contemplation that reveal the filmmakers' aspirations. Sadly, there just aren't enough of them.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Universal Theatre, Sydney on November 4, 2014