Although over twenty years have elapsed since he directed the
Oscar-winning, Best Picture “Braveheart” in 1995, Mel Gibson hasn’t lost his
touch as a topnotch director. The pugnacious,
bloodthirsty, fact-based, World War II spectacle “Hacksaw Ridge” (**** OUT OF
****) ranks as the first memorable battlefront epic of the 21st
century. Hollywood hasn’t marched out a significant
WW 2 film for inspection since 1998 when Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private
Ryan” landed on the silver screen. Mind
you, after the Allied soldiers stormed the Normandy beaches in France, the
Spielberg saga degenerated into a soggy sandbag of a movie. I grew up in the 1960s when Hollywood
produced patriotic movies and TV shows about World War II by the dozens. As far as I am concerned, “The Longest Day” (1962)
still tops “Saving Private Ryan.” While
it didn’t wallow in the savagery of “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Longest Day”
constituted a far more meaningful movie because it covered all sides of the
combat. Comparatively, “Hacksaw Ridge”
takes place in the Pacific rather than Europe and depicts the bloody battle of Okinawa,
where U.S. troops encountered suicidal Japanese soldiers entrenched in caves
that eventually became their tombs.
Feisty filmgoers may complain that Gibson didn’t detail the entire sordid
story. For example, those flame-thrower wielding
G.I.s not only incinerated Japanese troops, but also roasted the natives who
had been forced to fight alongside with the Japanese. Some island women committed suicide out of
fear of getting raped, while others resorted to spears to defend themselves
against the invading troops. The ferocious,
R-rated blood, gore, and aggression--visceral in every respect as it should be—that
Gibson has staged serves to remind moviegoers that this 82-day battle constituted
the bloodiest military campaign in the Pacific.
While “Hacksaw Ridge” shows us that “war is hell,” this wholesale
carnage celebrates the heroism of a unique WW 2 hero. Former “Amazing Spiderman” actor Andrew
Garfield does a slam-bang job of playing real-life American Army Medic Private
First Class Desmond T. Doss who made history as the first conscientious
objector to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. The irony of “Hacksaw Ridge” is that it
commemorates the exploits of a Seventh-Day Adventist who sought to save lives
rather than destroy them.
Now, you’d think a movie about a conscientious objector would
be very dull, but “Hacksaw Ridge” is far from dreary. Robert Schenkkan, who wrote four episodes of
the World War II mini-series “The Pacific,” and “Efficiency Expert” scribe
Andrew Knight follow our protagonist, Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield of “The
Amazing Spider-man”) from boot camp to his baptism under fire at Okinawa. They also deal with his reckless youth when
he almost killed his younger brother and later disarmed his drunken father
after the latter had abused his mother.
The bulk of the action concerns the trials and tribulations that
occurred after he enlisted. Desmond
informed his Army superiors that he had no use for guns, and he refused to
drill with, much less discharge a rifle on the firing range. Desmond suffered
the wrath of not only his military superiors but also soldiers that he trained
with, and both went to extraordinary lengths to oust him from the Army. Indeed, the Army tried to court-marshal him
and his barracks buddies battered and ridiculed him because they figured that
he was a yellow-livered coward. Smitty
Ryker (Luke Bracey of “Point Break”) was one of the barracks ringleaders who
did everything possible to make life unbearable for Desmond. Captain Glover (Sam Worthington of “Avatar”)
and Drill Sergeant Howell (Vince Vaughn of “The Wedding Crashers”) were just as
despicable, too. Nevertheless, neither
Desmond’s fellow soldiers nor his superiors had any luck in running him
off. He sticks out the worse of
everything and goes into action as a medic.
When the troops get to Okinawa, they experience combat at its most
tragic. The Japanese never know when to
stop and they live for the opportunity to kill Americans, even trotting out to
ostensibly surrender but then pulling out guns and grenades to kill, kill,
kill. Just about every appendage of the
human body is either blasted off or blown off.
Desmond watches grimly as rats gnaw on the decomposing bodies of
American and Japanese soldiers. Nothing
about combat in “Hacksaw Ridge” is glamorous. Everybody is shocked and surprised when Desmond
ascends a cliffhanger escarpment, draped with a heavy-duty cargo net, and
rescues one-by-one, 75 wounded soldiers during the night who had made his life
a miserable hell in boot camp. Suddenly,
they reassessed this gawky looking lad and worshiped him like a saint.
In an interview with “Deadline Hollywood,” Mel Gibson
explained what impressed him about Desmond Doss. “The guy didn’t carry a
weapon, never fired a bullet, was a conscientious objector who thought it was
wrong to kill under any circumstances. But he had the guts to go into the worst
place you can imagine and stick to his convictions, armed with nothing else but
sheer faith. Walk in and just do the impossible, which is courage under fire unparalleled
because he didn’t do it in a split second or decision or moment. He did it
again and again and again.” Indeed,
Gibson and his scenarists faced a gargantuan task in adapting Desmond Doss’s
life. Usually, Hollywood embroiders facts to heighten the melodrama. Had the
filmmakers adhered to actual events, “Hacksaw Ridge” would have seemed just ‘too
good to be true.’ Lack of space
prohibits me from going into detail about Doss’s life and the values that shaped
him. Most of those details seem wholly
incredible. Squeamish spectators may
have difficulty sitting through the last half of “Hacksaw Ridge” when body
parts start flying. Meanwhile,
bloodthirsty moviegoers may find themselves champing at the bit as Gibson fills
the first half of with Desmond’s sudsy romance with his future wife, Dorothy
Schutte (Teresa Palmer of “Lights Out”), particularly when he sneaks his first
kiss and she slaps him. Altogether, “Hacksaw Ridge” qualifies as unforgettable
from fade-in to fade-out.
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