Review of Hacksaw Ridge (2016) by Hotelcentral — 03 Mar 2019

Hacksaw Ridge is a pretty good film that relies almost entirely on the face of Andrew Garfield. If you are not moved by his face, his look, his expressions, the film will fail you completely.

The film is hampered by several things. Some of the dialog is second-rate and here and there steps out of period to make use of easy modernisms. Some of the basic training sequences come across as unlikely. The bit about somebody's father appealing to a higher authority to get somebody out of trouble may or may not have actually happened back in the 1940s, but since then we've seen this kind of thing in a great many films and as plot devices go it has not improved with age.

Also, just because it irks me, late in the film our main character, Desmond Doss, remarks to another soldier, "I never told you I'm not crazy," despite the fact that he said almost those very words--"I'm not crazy"--to an army doctor evaluating Doss' mental fitness for the Army.

Another issue: a great deal of the battle seen on screen focuses on the fighting, the shooting, the explosions, and oh by the way there's this medic over yonder who's running around saving people. Well, yeah, Mr. Gibson, that's supposed to be your main character and the whole point of the movie.

There's a scene near the end where we cut to a Japanese commander in time to see him commit suicide. It's the first time we see him, as far as I recall, and why we see him at all I don't know, unless maybe someone felt a need to show a Japanese officer killing himself with a dagger--which is odd because I always thought it was women samurai who did it with a dagger.

In any case, the final half hour or so is mostly centered on Doss as he rescues dozens of wounded soldiers. It's a pretty good sequence. Again, Andrew Garfield's face makes it believable, or not, and the film succeeds or fails based on how you react to that face.

I won't bother mentioning the boarding net. It's hung down the side of a cliff. And no matter how many times the Marines use it to climb onto the "ridge" the Japanese never seem to get around to cutting the net down.

I might've given Hacksaw an 8 but for the flaws. Definitely worth a watch.