Hacksaw Ridge ** (2016, Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Vince Vaughn, Teresa Palmer) – Movie Review

Hacksaw Ridge tells the incredible true story of World War Two American Army Medic Desmond T Doss, who refuses to kill people as a conscientious objector but feels it is his duty to serve in the war after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.

After a brief prologue, and in some flashbacks, we see how his upbringing shaped religious views and anti-killing stance. Basically, his dad waved a gun at his mom, he grabs it, wants to use it, and he vows to God never to hold a weapon again. The film tells about the dad’s violent abuse of the son and the mother, but glosses over it, and later turns dad into an embattled heroic figure.

Doss meets a girl he loves, the lovely Dorothy Schutte, but defies her and his parents and enlists in the US Army and tries to become a medic, meeting trials and tribulations from officers and men, till finally he is accepted and goes off to serve in the Battle of Okinawa. Talk about doing it my way!

After helping loads of wounded men to safety under during battle against the Japs as the Americans are forced to retreat, Doss nips back to Hacksaw Ridge and gets 75 more wounded out, including his sergeant, and as a result becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot for his incredible bravery and regard for his fellow soldiers.

As told here by screen-writers Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight, the story is in the interesting if not entirely persuasive category, especially if you are a Christian, but director Mel Gibson’s handling of it is gruelling and unsubtle. The film is as hard to sit through as his The Passion of the Christ (2004), to which it bears a resemblance. Doss is seen as the Christ figure here, tormented, tried and tested, but triumphant.

The battle scenes, with their intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence including grisly bloody images, are way too revolting to be reasonably watchable, certainly as this absurdly gruelling length. Gibson makes his point very quickly. A couple of minutes of this would do, we really don’t need an hour or so of it. You want to see men’s heads blown away? I didn’t think so. It pretends to be ‘realistic’, showing the horror of war as it really is, but it is stylised and scored with revoltingly soupy music, still just another movie version of war.

What is the point of this film at this time? Let’s forget World War Two, can we, and move on, eh? It’s time. Wallowing in all this Army macho stuff and war violence seems very retrograde and old fashioned. And it there in this film only to bash home the religious message. This is a Sunday School war movie that you can’t send your kids to. It has a UK 15 certificate, by the way, when an 18 might be better, or the BBFC could just have banned it and put us all out of our misery.

There are a lot of Australian actors in the cast, most of them struggling with their ”American’ accents, betraying that the film is made in Australia. It is a problem that often it doesn’t really feel American. There is a strong anti-Japanese feel to the movie, of course, as they were the enemy, cue plenty of references to Japanese soldiers as Japs or Nips.

Andrew Garfield works very hard to convince, in a brave and moving performance as Doss. Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey and Richard Roxburgh make a good impression as Captain Glover, Smitty Ryker and Colonel Stelzer.

Hugo Weaving and especially Rachel Griffiths have poorly written, underdeveloped roles as the parents, Tom and Bertha Doss. But Vince Vaughn cheers this up a bit as the wry Sgt Howell and Teresa Palmer is sweet as Doss’s girlfriend.

Generally, the acting is fine (Aussie accents apart) and the production marvellously achieved (some weak CGI background work apart) in an extremely well crafted movie, with faultless work on cinematography (Simon Duggan), editing (John Gilbert), sound, Production Design (Barry Robison), Costume Design (Lizzy Gardiner), make up and hair (Shane Thomas) and especially stunts.

Andrew Garfield was last seen suffering in Scorsese’s Silence, Luke Bracey was last seen as Utah in the remake of Point Break. Teresa Palmer was last seen in Lights Out (2016).

It is nominated for six Oscars, including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Director.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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