Review of Hacksaw Ridge (2016) by Dana F — 09 Jul 2017

Emphasis on the "hack". If there is one thing Mel Gibson is not known for, it's subtlety. His films have never had a light touch, especially when it comes to his adored savior figures, and this movie is no exception.

There is actually a pretty damn good war movie hidden in here... unfortunately, you have to sit through an hour of sap and melodrama to get to it. The problem with this film is that it's two films smashed together: one is a character drama about how saintly and pious Desmond Doss becomes saintly and pious, even in the army; and the other is a balls-out uber-violent bloodbath of a war movie.

The first part sucks, the second is pretty awesome. So let's start with the first half - it is so unbelievably saccharine it made my teeth hurt. The protagonist is such a goddamn boy scout, the movie may as well have been called "Mr.

Smith Goes to War". Even the talented Andrew Garfield, who I am a big fan of, could not make him believable (luckily, in spite of this, Garfield's undeniable charisma makes us root for him anyway).

And it's not just him, all the characters in this film suffer from two-dimensionality, and the film's cheeseball dialogue and dramatic swells of music don't help the situation. It's all so predictable.

And then there is the sad, unforgivable imitation of Full Metal Jacket's infamous bootcamp scene, which was literally painful to watch. It's just offensive. By the midpoint, I was barely hanging on, trying to hold on to what little interest I had in this film and then HOLY SHIT IT'S A WAR MOVIE AAAAIIGHHHH!!! At that point, shit gets real, and fast.

The juxtaposition of the horror, grit, and gore of this half with the sallow tepidness of the first is as shocking as a smack in the face. But at least the second half is effective. It's here that you really start to care about the characters, even the ones with very little screen time, which just shows that all the time spent up to that point was wasted on a back-story that wasn't important or necessary.

Sadly, the film returns to its melodramatic roots at the end, which weakens the emotional punch of the second half and cheapens the story as a whole. And the story is a pretty amazing one, regardless of all the missteps in the telling, and one that really hits home when you see a few of the real-life interviews at the end (I wish there were more).

I give the first half of this movie a D and the second a B+.