Hacksaw Ridge. 2016.
Directed by Mel Gibson.
Starring Andrew Garfield, Hugo Weaving, Vince Vaughn, Teresa Palmer, and Sam Worthington.
SYNOPSIS:
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
No one engulfs us into the searing horrors of war quite like director Mel Gibson (Braveheart), and it’s clear right from the opening frames of Hacksaw Ridge – complete with bloodied bodies lying motionless all around the battlefield that is Okinawa – that the message of the film isn’t one of traditional action machismo heroics, but another terrorizing experience condemning the act of war. The hero himself, Desmond Doss (played by Andrew Garfield from the recent Spider-Man films that seemingly no one gave two shits about, except here with a highly convincing Virginian drawl accent) is a pacifist, a conscientious objector to war preferring to roam around the hellish environment in hopes of saving lives rather than taking them.
Naturally, it’s the personality and convictions of Desmond that are the heart and soul of Hacksaw Ridge. Ever the interesting figure, glimpses of his upbringing and personal family life are peered into early on during the movie, at first seeming only to exist as a formulaic back-story to his pacifist qualities, but Mel Gibson being the brilliant director he is regarding storytelling, wisely knows how to expand on this aspect even during downtime moments of the fighting. It all comes together highly satisfying in a way that truly paints his convictions as wholly empathetic. There are even some brief scenes showing Desmond interested in birds and other wildlife, further demonstrating his fixation on the beauty of life over the pain of suffering and death.
The other fleeting standardized Hollywood aspect of the picture is Desmond’s love interest (Teresa Palmer) who works in the hospital, and by coincidence is the one that gives him the ‘eureka’ moment to enlist in the war as a medic. Not much of her character seems to matter much throughout the rest of the film (there isn’t even an epilogue with the two after all of the bloodshed is finished, although the ending itself still feels refreshing and not necessarily cliché); overall she is an afterthought. Their love blossoms too fast and is a bit hard to take seriously; she exists as a way to manipulate the audience into rooting for Desmond to make it back home, but thankfully without taking up too much filler screen-time. The issue is that the movie is so powerful and moving that this wasn’t necessary to begin with. If anything it is just superfluous to the experience.
Hacksaw Ridge comes into its own once Desmond reaches boot camp and is ostracized by his fellow squad-mates and Drill Sergeant (played by Vince Vaughn in a more dramatic role way outside of his comfort zone, but also one that gives him some leeway to provide the sarcastic smart ass humor you would expect from someone of his character’s profession), all for his refusal to physically use or even carry a firearm during both the fighting and actual combat training. What follows is once again, a mental battle of convictions and beliefs as Desmond is both physically and emotionally abused by his peers, trying to push him to a breaking point that forces him to quit.
Without spoiling much Desmond does get his wish, and once the bullets, flamethrowers, grenades, and every other man-made weapon designed to kill start injuring and killing men on both sides of the battlefield, sheer horror settles in for both Desmond and the audience. Believe everything you have read and heard regarding the content of how graphic the depiction of war is in Hacksaw Ridge; it is never for a second anything but unbelievably gruesome. Also, I’m not just talking about the decapitations and severed limbs that occur just as frequently as an F bomb in a film by Martin Scorsese, but even bullets piercing flesh are met with copious amounts of realistic blood. The scenery is absolute chaos, but more importantly it is deliberately controlled chaos that Mel Gibson efficiently knows how to control to elicit a sense of scale and feeling of the conflict. Yes its chaotic, but viewers are always be able to decipher just what is happening.
Meanwhile, Desmond does his duty and attempts to save injured soldiers, whether it be giving them shots of morphine or wrapping up wounds in tourniquets, or rounding up over 70 stranded soldiers by his lonesome self in the night while everyone else has retreated. Who said you need a gun to be a hero? What’s most fascinating besides the all-out intensity of the violence (there are four sequences of battle that roughly take up almost 45 minutes of the entire movie) is simply watching Desmond interact with those he is trying to rescue away from the battlefield. Instead of just watching people die, we get to witness masculine soldiers pleading for their lives in hopes of surviving whatever fatal injury they have sustained, while they also come to the realization that their savior medic is anything but a coward. We also relate to the horror Desmond is wrapped up in, because just like there is no way to prepare you for the graphic nature of Hacksaw Ridge, no amount of training could prepare him for the events he experiences.
On a week where the recent Marvel superhero film is also being released, Hacksaw Ridge is the real superhero film; one about a deeply religious, family man, pacifist that saved numerous lives without ever touching his rifle. It is both simultaneously horrifying and spiritually uplifting. Mel Gibson’s direction is exceptional, garnering strong performances out of his actors (Andrew Garfield is most definitely Oscar-worthy), while the film also contains breathtaking production and sound design. Whether it be bullets clanking and piercing through helmets or grenades blowing off limbs into nothing more than guts and blood, the horrors of war come alive and will undoubtedly leave scars.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder – Chief Film Critic of Flickering Myth. Check here for new reviews weekly, friend me on Facebook, follow my Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
Originally published November 5, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
