Trama

An Australian man travels to Turkey after the Battle of Gallipoli to try to locate his three missing sons.

An Australian man travels to Turkey after the Battle of Gallipoli to try to locate his three missing sons reported missing in action, where he forges a relationship with the beautiful Turkish woman who owns the hotel in which he stays. Holding onto hope, he must travel across the war-torn landscape with the help of a Turkish Officer, himself a veteran of the battles.—Rose

After the Battle of Gallipoli, an Australian farmer named Connor (Russell Crowe) is devastated to learn that his three sons have been killed in the melee, so he travels to Turkey to locate and retrieve their bodies for burial. While there, he discovers the possibility that one of his sons is alive and being held as a prisoner of war..

Four years after the Battle of Gallipoli, Australian farmer Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) travels to Turkey to find his three sons, who never returned home from the war. When he arrives in Istanbul, he meets others who have also suffered losses: hotelier Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) and her son Orhan, who befriends Connor; and Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan), a Turkish officer who fought against Connor's sons and might now be their father's only hope in finding closure.

Tough Aussie farmer and veteran Joshua Connor uses his divining rod gift and toils his tail off to create a ranch in the Outback for himself, wife and three wonderful sons. When the Geat War requires colonial troops for the British imperial front, first born Art promises to mind his brothers Edward and Hnery, but neither returns from the extremely bloody Gallipoli front. Their mother forces Joshua to play along in blind denial, but finally drowns herself, without absolute certainty. Now he leaves his farm behind and ships to Turkey, which is painfully emerging from the ruins of the defeated Ottoman empire. The Allied authorities in Istanbul tell the civilian to return home, but he finds discrete advise in the family he's craftily dragged to by half-orphan Orhan, whose mother Ayshe must accept the enemy guest as her brother in law and guardian Omer realizes they can't afford to turn away rich foreigners. He stubbornly works his way to the killing field and finds two sons' corpses by divining rod, but Arthur was put on a virtually lethal caravan inland. Hvaing won the respect of Turkish Kemalist (nationalist) Major Hasan, he manages to join his men, who turned on 'collaborator' Omer, by train to fight off the Greek invasion, with unlikely outcome.—KGF Vissers

1919, after the end of World War 1. Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) is an Australian farmer, and water diviner. He specializes in locating and digging wells. Connor uses 2 metal wires that rotate in his hands, and he uses those to find the location of water under the ground. He digs at the spot where the 2 wires cross each other. Connor has a unique way of constructing a well, so that it does not collapse in on itself.

When he returns home after his exertions, his wife Eliza (Jacqueline McKenzie) discloses that his three sons Arthur/Art (Ryan Corr), Edward (James Fraser) and Henry (Ben O'Toole) left for war to serve with the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) at the Battle of Gallipoli 5 years previously and have not returned. All are presumed dead.

Eliza is unable to deal with the grief, as she loses her mental balance. She pretends that her boys are in bed, safe and sound. She makes Connor read story books to their empty beds at night. She commits suicide by drowning herself. Eliza blames Connor for not being able to find their children and bring them home, even though he can find water. Connor pledges to bring the bodies of his son's home to be buried alongside their mother.

Connor travels to Turkey where he decides to stay in a Turkish hotel run by the recently widowed Turkish Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), the hotel owner. Turkey is now in British and ANZAC hands. Ayshe is not happy to host an Australian in her hotel, but situation is dire, and the family needs the money. When Connor contacts the British consul, he is told that Gallipoli is off limits, and he is forbidden to travel. The Greeks have complicated things further by attacking Turkey's western coast. The consul tries to explain that his sons are probably buried in a mass grave with horses and mules, and it is almost impossible for Connor to recognize them after 4 years of being buried. After befriending Ayshe's son Orhan (Dylan Georgiades), Ayshe warms to the rugged Australian when she learns of his loss and why he is in Turkey. She advises him to bribe a fisherman from a local village and that will allow him to make his way to Gallipoli.

Connor makes the journey and arrives in Gallipoli only to be met with more resistance. The ANZAC troops are engaged in a mass burial detail and all civilians are forbidden. Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) a Turkish officer originally in charge of defending Gallipolis now assisting the ANZAC troops in finding the mass graves (10,000 troops were lost at Gallipoli and more than half of them are still not located yet). The ANZAC troops then extract the bodies and give them a proper military burial. Hasan says that the Turkish army lost 70,000 men. Hasan advises the ANZAC captain Lt-Col Cyril Hughes (Jai Courtney) to allow Connor to search for his sons and Hughes acquiesces. Hasan says that Connor is the only father who came looking. Connor knew when and where his boys were killed (through his son's diary), and Hasan knew the area.

Through flashbacks, on 20th December 1915, it is revealed that the 3 boys were engaged in combat at Gallipoli. The Turkish forces had stormed the ANZAC trenches and found them to be empty. The Turkish army believe that they have scored a massive victory. 3 months before on Aug 7th, there was an ANZAC offensive of the Turkish lines. ANZAC troops reached the Turkish trenches. Art got injured while returning to his trench. As Henry and Edward ran to his rescue the Turkish army machine gunned them killing one and badly wounding the other with the fate of the oldest brother Art unknown.

Connor walks the battlefield reminiscing about his sons. He uncovers the two younger boys' bodies which are identified by the locket around their necks. Shockingly he discovers a bullet hole in the head of one of the skulls. An ANZAC sergeant implies that Major Hasan oversaw the defense in the area and ordered all casualties to be executed. Connor attempts to assault Hasan but is stopped. Hasan says that it was ANZAC who invaded Turkey. Hughes says that Turkish army lost 7000 men at the same spot, and ANZAC didn't take many prisoners either. So, they are all culpable for the same crimes.

Major Hasan recognizes Connor's surname and realizes that Art may have been taken prisoner and taken to a prison camp in Anatolia. At this point Hasan declines to help further (as The ANZAC and the British are not helping the Turkish army against the invading Greeks) and the ANZAC force Connor to leave.

Connor returns to Istanbul but fails to find out to which prison camp Arthur was transferred, as many Turkish records have been burned. Connor returns to Ayshe's hotel where she is celebrating her son, Orhan's Bris. Later Connor intervenes when Ayshe's brother-in-law Omer (Steve Bastoni) attempts to hit her. Omer wants to take Ayshe as his second wife, but Ayshe says that she is not ready yet. Ayshe lashes out, blaming Joshua for making things worse and tells him to leave. As Joshua leaves the hotel, Omer and a few of his friends attack him, only to be stopped by Hasan's subordinate, Sergeant Jemal (Cem Yilmaz). Jemal takes Joshua to Hasan.

Hasan explains that the Greeks have invaded, and the Turkish army are going to war to defend their country as the British are not intervening. Connor realizes they are going through the region where his son Art was held. As Joshua returns to the hotel to retrieve his belongings, Ayshe apologizes for her earlier words. The British intervene and tell Connor he is to be removed from the country, but he escapes thanks to Ayshe and joins the Turks on the train.

While on the train, Jemal asks Joshua about a cricket bat he found in the Allied trenches when they retreated, as he is unsure whether it is a weapon or not. Joshua then explains to the Turkish soldiers on board the train the basic rules of cricket. The train is ambushed and almost all of the soldiers are killed. As a Greek officer prepares to execute Hasan and Jemal, Connor intervenes but unfortunately Jemal is killed. Connor and Hasan flee and come across a village where they spot a water divining well. The well is constructed in the manner Connor taught to his sons. He investigates further, and finds his son Art, alive, but somewhat disheveled and badly traumatized by his experiences in the war.

Art discloses that at the end of the battle Henry was badly injured. Henry pleaded with Art to end his suffering and Art, with no other option, shot his younger brother. Believing he had caused his brother's deaths, he felt he could never return to his family. As he finishes his story, the Greeks attack the town, and Art shows his father an escape route through the mountains.

Racked with guilt, Art refuses to follow his father but when Connor refuses to leave without his son, Art agrees to follow him. They escape into the mountains and evade the Greek army, returning to Ayshe's hotel. Ayshe makes coffee for Connor. It is hinted that it is very sweet-a sign that she is falling for Connor.