by BoB GRimm
b gr imm@ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m
Hacksaw Ridge is violent enough to earn an NC-17 rating. So, there’s your warning.
War is Mel
Christ (a.k.a. When Jesus Got His Ass Kicked) and Apocalypto, doesn’t shy away from movie violence, and this one is a major splatterfest. Yes, it’s honorable and majestic in its treatment of the Doss Mel Gibson directs his first movie in a decade character for the most part, but it’s not the easiest and—surprise—the sucker bleeds. It bleeds a lot. film to watch. As a director, Gibson stands alongside the likes I saw this with a matinee crowd filled with many of Sam Raimi, David Cronenberg and Peter Jackson folks who were alive at the time of Doss’s actual as a master of body horror. Yes, I will go so far as feats. I’ve never heard so many screams and audible to say his latest, Hacksaw Ridge, is an all out horror measures of discomfort in a movie screening before. film in parts. His depiction of a World War II battle So, there’s your warning. Hacksaw Ridge is violent makes George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead look enough to earn an NC-17. Actually, I’m surprised it like Zootopia. didn’t get that rating. The movie tells the true story of Desmond Doss Garfield does his best screen work to date as (Andrew Garfield), a battlefield medic and the first Doss, a man who deserves the almost saint-like of three conscientious objectors in U.S. warfare portrayal he gets in this movie. Garfield is the total history to receive the Medal of Honor. The dude embodiment of goodness here, and he pulls off refused to pick up a gun, or any weapon for that every moment he spends on screen, including the matter, during his time served in Okinawa. That corny ones. Vince Vaughn has dabbled in dramatic didn’t stop him from braving the battlefields with departures from his usual comedies comrades, eventually saving the before, but never as effectively as lives of 75 men during horrendously he does here as a drill sergeant who bloody battles. can’t believe what he’s seeing and Much of the film’s first half hearing in regards to Doss. is devoted to Doss’s backstory, Sam Worthington also does a troubled childhood with his career-best work as Captain Glover, alcoholic World War I veteran father Director: Mel Gibson portrayed in the film as Doss’s Starring: Andrew Garfield, (a good Hugo Weaving) and an biggest foe within the military until Hugo Weaving, Teresa Palmer eventual romance with future wife they share a battlefield together. Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer). Palmer gets a real chance to show her The early goings in the film are star power, and she capitalizes on that handled well, although they are a little schmaltzy at chance by also delivering a career-best performance. times. Gibson isn’t at his best when he’s handling So, yes, it’s a testament to Gibson’s powers the romance stuff. as a director that he gets a lot of career-best When Doss goes to boot camp and faces off performances out of his cast. As for his staging against commanding officers like Captain Glover of the battle scenes, they aren’t just bloody. They (Sam Worthington) and Sgt. Howell (Vince are absolutely terrifying. Gibson is trying to get Vaughn), the film starts to get very interesting. Due across the message that Doss and soldiers like him to his Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, Doss refuses went through the very worst hell on earth, and he to pick up a rifle, and this gets him into all sorts of succeeds in a colossal way. jams on the training field and in the barracks. After No doubt, Gibson is a full-blown nut and, as it a detour for a court-martial hearing, Doss and his turns out, the perfect director to tell this amazing infantry mates are deployed to Japan. story. Hacksaw Ridge isn’t a total masterpiece, but When the action switches to the scaling of the it has passages that qualify it as one of the more Maeda Escarpment a.k.a. Hacksaw Ridge, the essential war films ever made. Not bad for a guy movie becomes perhaps the most grueling war who took a 10-year break from the director’s chair movie experience ever made. Gibson, as he’s after, well, you know. Ω proven before with Braveheart, The Passion of the
Hacksaw Ridge
12345
22
|
RN&R
|
11.10.16
