Hacksaw Ridge

Dir Mel Gibson 

Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Hugo Weaving, Teresa Palmer, Rachel Griffiths. 

Desmond Doss (Garfield) is a kind hearted farmers son living in the early 1940’s. Following the attack on Pearl Harbour, he signs up for the army to become a medic – despite his Seventh day Adventist faith for which he becomes a conscience objector. During the war, he is single handedly responsible for saving almost 100 soldiers from being slaughtered. 

The film is poorly broken into three distinct story-points, where only one is well done. Part one is Doss’ introduction to his love interest, Dorothy (a badly cast Palmer). The way the pair meet, fall in love and eventually marry is badly written – and if it was not based on a true story would be completely unbelievable. There is an almost egregious use of the score that gives us forced emotion, and is completely manipulative.  

The second arc I thought was okay – with Doss refusing to hold a weapon – but once again it was written clumsily – especially the courtroom scene which ends as quickly as it starts. Both these parts are around half an hour, and were too rushed. 

The final hour going to the actual war scenes that were done quite well, with some of the best on screen war scenes I’ve witnessed. Almost the entire hour is filled with memorable moments such as the ‘hold your breath’ ‘ghoul blows up the trench’ and the tunnel scene. 

Doss is also written/played as almost ‘special needs’ – and this is strange as well, considering how articulate he was shown to be in real life as the credits role. it is never shown how he could become a medic in the war. 

Some of the performances by the mostly Australian cast was a little poor as well, with very unconvincing American accents (especially by Worthinton), and some of the settings were clearly filmed in Australia. 

Despite the critical acclaim, this was a fail in my book. 

2.5/5