Hacksaw Ridge Review
Mel Gibson returns to the director’s chair and his newest effort, Hacksaw Ridge, is a triumph. Not only is it the best war movie in years, but it’s one of Gibson’s best films, in-front or behind the camera. With a cast like Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, and Hugo Weaving, just to name a few, he boasts a good ensemble of actors that know what they’re doing and are in some ways branching out for the first time in a while, so it’s a good return for Weaving and Vaughn in particular.
For the most part, there isn’t much to complain about for the film, except that the beginning is a bit, well, hokey. That quickly changes, though, as we see Garfield progress in life as Desmond Doss, and of course it’s based on a true story, or more accurately, is a true story as the opening title card reads. And his story, if you’re not familiar, is of a pacifist who signs up for battle in WWII, but refuses to touch a rifle. After getting out of a whole lot of trouble with his superiors, he is given permission to be a medic on the field who marches and travels with the regular battalions, and their biggest test comes with taking and holding Hacksaw ridge near Okinawa. So, what’s good about it? Just about everything. Garfield hits all the right notes as Desmond, being a pacifist but not a lazy one, but a passionate one that is willing to push himself to his upper limits in order to save his comrades. Also great in the movie, particularly, is Hugo Weaving as Desmond’s father, who at first appears to be just the opening inspiration for Desmond to become something more than a Virginia mill worker, but without giving anything away, he turns out to be more than that.
The training sequences, which is always a staple of war movies, is fairly well done and Vince Vaughn has a nice turn as the drill sergeant, and his performance helps elevate the twenty minute stretch where we learn all the other heroes’ names and their different personalities, and then as we move on to the actual war footage, we get a different tone and mood instantly. Now, how good are the war sequences? Well, I’ll say this: Saving Private Ryan (1998) looks kinda lame now. At least that’s my immediate reaction. Maybe if I go back and watch that again, I’ll go back on that, but for now I’m gonna say it’s an excellently bloody effort that will stick with you. As we draw to the close of the film, we see Desmond’s triumph as he risks his life dozens of times to save men who could very well die in minutes if not for his efforts, and as we share the same expressions that the characters in the film do, those of amazement and disbelieve, we are reminded of the best elements of war movies: the amazing elements that make those of us born after or who didn’t participate respect those who did give their time, lives, and in some cases their soles, in any war. In particular you look at films like Saving Private Ryan and Platoon (1986) or more recently American Sniper (2014) to watch for this. I think that Hacksaw Ridge will easily fit in with these films in the next years. It’s that good.
Now for a couple of criticisms. Yeah, off the top there’s a few hokey moments that show Desmond and his brother in their youth. It’s your standard Forrest Gump (1994) opening where you see the characters in their youth and you see the beautiful landscapes of where they grew up and blah, blah, blah, let’s get to something that matters. Then you get a scene where Desmond’s brother goes off to war and we see the father’s reaction, which is great, but we never follow up. Did his brother die? Did he come home later? What happened? Oh well, at least we got a scene of Hugo Weaving showing his stuff. One thing I wasn’t a big fan of was the number of characters we had to follow from the training scenes. We almost get the feeling we have to keep all the characters listed on paper in order to keep track of them. Sure, a few do stick out and get individual moments of glory or excitement where we have a good chance to remember them, but I wish we didn’t have twenty characters, but rather seven or eight. Then one other criticism, one that reminds me of the ending of Sully, where everything wraps up in a bow. We have Teresa Palmer as Desmond’s wife, and she basically gets a few scenes in the first half but then disappears in the second half. It would have been nice to see her reaction to seeing Desmond again after the events of the film, or to see them reunited after the events of the film. Sure, the film runs at almost two hours and twenty minutes, but I feel sacrifice a few characters and add a bit more of the love story, which works just fine, but I feel it could have been even better if Gibson had focused more on it.
So yeah, on top of the film progressively getting better and better as it goes, we see the technical crafts are very well executed as well. I fully expect the film to be nominated in several categories at the Oscars, and even has a shot of winning a few, like the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories. The cinematography was very well done and the editing is again a great achievement that might just get editor John Gilbert his second Oscar nomination. The score is also terrific and the set designs and costumes design quietly fade into the background as the action picks up, but at the same time you notice that it’s still excellent work. Again, a lot of the credit for how well the film is put together goes to director Mel Gibson. He’s had some, ahem, personal problems, in the past that have diminished his sexy nature and made his a hugely controversial figure in Hollywood. Hopefully this film helps him, because as we’ve seen before, regardless of how the public treats you, views you, or says to you, if talent is there and not utilized, the way Gibson did underutilize his talents from time to time in the past decades, it’s a sin. Hopefully, in many respects, Gibson will sin no more. Let’s just say that for those who haven’t gotten off of the subject of his actions, those sins will, in some ways, be absolved.
My rating: 9/10.
