The Water Diviner Movie Reviews
4.4
Richard Roeper | Chicago Sun-Times
A first-rate post-World War I drama with a heavy dose of sentiment and a gripping storyline.Read full review4.0
All this publication's reviews | Total Film
The film’s only let down by its too-frequent recourse to narrative cliché.Read full review3.8
Sara Stewart | New York Post
Crowe makes the most of his own quiet presence, and this ode to the world’s never-recovered soldiers and their families is a fitting meditation on the insanity of war.Read full review3.8
Peter Travers | Rolling Stone
In The Water Diviner, Crowe strives to strike a universal chord about the futility of war. Simplistic? Maybe. But in crafting a film about the pain a parent feels after losing a child in battle, Crowe transcends borders and politics. It's not war being honored here, it's sacrifice and inconsolable loss. I'd call that a substantial achievement.Read full review3.8
Inkoo Kang | TheWrap
Crowe’s beauty-seeking, but exoticizing camera is slightly outmatched by his performance, which anchors the film with regret tinged with hope. But what continues to haunt after the credits finish rolling are the film’s explorations of the trauma of life after war: The brutally quick political shifts, the lingering shame of committing vicious and dishonorable acts, and the bitter knowledge that there’s no such thing as lasting peace.Read full review3.5
All this publication's reviews | Screen International
The Water Diviner is a heart-warming tale of family, love and sacrifice told with four-square enthusiasm and manliness by director and star Russell Crowe.Read full review3.5
Bill Goodykoontz | Arizona Republic
The story takes some unexpected turns, which Crowe handles well, without overplaying them. Overall, The Water Diviner is a solid effort, a good, old-fashioned movie when it's not delving into soap opera.Read full review3.0
All this publication's reviews | Empire
It’s an odd mix of "Saving Private Ryan" odyssey and romantic melodrama. It has sincerity, sensitivity and is often ravishing to look at but is let down by a chocolate box love story. Still, Crowe still might have a "Braveheart"/"Dances With Wolves" in him yet.Read full review2.9
Peter Rainer | Christian Science Monitor
A sloggy, heartfelt piece of quasi-magical realist storytelling.Read full review2.5
Matt Brennan | Slant Magazine
In straining for the profound, the film ultimately loses its way in a veritable no-man's land of ill-conceived stylistic choices and narrative switchbacks.Read full review2.5
Nick Schager | Village Voice
Crowe's visual framing and dramatic staging are as assured as his compelling lead performance. Yet as his story becomes weighed down by issues of cross-cultural understanding, forgiveness, and second chances...the film comes to feel like a slight, straightforward tale distended to tedious lengths.Read full review2.5
Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune
Crowe's feature directorial debut, The Water Diviner, stems from an honest impulse to dramatize ordinary people who honor their dead. Yet the results are narratively dishonest and emotionally a little cheap.Read full review2.5
All this publication's reviews | The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
But just as Anzac troops had quite a go of it in Gallipoli, Crowe (who also stars as the doggedly bereaved father and exceptional well-digger here) is in tough with critic-historians aghast at The Water Diviner’s pro-Turkish slant.Read full review2.5
Ann Hornaday | Washington Post
Crowe clearly seeks to return to classic storytelling values with this sweeping-yet-intimate, serious-yet-swashbuckling, hither-yet-thither picaresque; that he succeeds only part of the time shouldn’t detract from the worthiness of his mission.Read full review2.5
All this publication's reviews | Portland Oregonian
Crowe is a commanding lead actor who could have made it into something special if he'd stayed out of his own way. Maybe he should have stayed home. You should.Read full review2.0
Marc Savlov | Austin Chronicle
A far more profound and moving film about this particularly Aussie/Kiwi campaign (and one that will probably never be topped) is Peter Weir’s devastating Gallipoli, starring a very young Mel Gibson. Given the choice, I’ll take that over Crowe’s earnest bombast any day.Read full reviewNR
Andrew O'Hehir | Salon.com
I have to assume that Russell Crowe and Warner Bros. did not deliberately set out to insult and anger the Armenian diaspora and its friends around the world, or to participate in covering up a monumental 20th-century crime that shaped the world we live in and remains swathed in too much historical shadow. They disgraced themselves by making this movie the way they did, and then redoubled the disgrace by releasing it this week.Read full review
-
3.0
My review of The Water Diviner (2014) by Patil
Patil, 9 years agoHere comes....... Russell Crowe Once more time. He Justified his role. Superb. Worth watching.