Hacksaw Ridge Is Rough Around the Edges

       By Sandra Olmsted

Although director Mel Gibson, whose previous headlines included racist rants, may have made Hacksaw Ridge as an act of atonement or a justification for individualist beliefs outside societal norms. He does, however, channel his enter rage and violence into this film to make the carnage of the war scenes very powerful.

Gibson tells the story of the real-life Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), conscientious objector during WWII who enlisted but continued to refuse to carry or fire a gun, in only an unfortunately pedestrian way. The film begins with several events in Desmond’s which molded his belief in pacifism but never truly deal with whether the belief is based on moral lessons learned in his abusive home or his Seventh Day Adventist religion.

Desmond’s conflicted desire to serve his country as a medic and his pathological avoidance of violence do not get the emotional and cinematic treatment that they should have, and the film and Desmond’s story feel incomplete. Beyond the directorial failures, the film fascinates for other reasons, including the excellent performances, a beautiful evocation of the era, and the bringing to light of the little known story of the first conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor.

Desmond grew up poor in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, mostly because his father Tom (Hugo Weaving) returned from WWI damaged and turned to alcohol to easy his pain of loosing all his best friends in bloody battles. The father’s character points out how difficult it must have been for the veterans of WWI to send their sons to war. Despite the effect that war violence had on him, Tom takes no such vow against violence and abuses his wife Bertha (Rachel Griffiths), and his sons, Desmond and Hal (Nathaniel Buzolic).

Eventually, Desmond falls for Dorothy, a nurse (Teresa Palmer) at the local hospital, and the scenes in which he woos her have a sincerely acted fumbling sweetness that wins her and the audience over. When Desmond enlists, he must endure being called a coward and ostracized for his beliefs, especially by Sgt. Howell (Vince Vaughn) and Captain Glover (Sam Worthington).

When the military real goes after Desmond helps comes from a surprising source. Once through boot camp, Desmond and his fellow soldiers find themselves on the suicidal mission to take Hacksaw Ridge, a 100-foot vertical cliff leading from the beach to a plateau battlefield on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the taking of which will be a pivotal battle in WWII.

Unfortunately, only slaughter awaits the soldiers at the top of the cliff, as it has from other units before them. When the nightmarish setting of mutilated and decomposing bodies and the brutality of the fighting shock even the most gung-ho of the soldiers, then Desmond’s faith and fortitude show his comrades-in-arms the true metal of his character.

When Desmond is left on the ridge at night when the troops retreated, he shows that his bravery and pacifism work to the advantage of his unit by pulling 75 injured men to safety. The real life Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor.

The brutality of the battle scenes draws heavily from the portrayals of battle in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers (2006), and yet has an edge that draws from Gibson’s own struggles with anger and violence and his belief in the value of an individual’s right to belief anything he or she wants, especially something ingrained by experience.

When Hacksaw Ridge opened with a narrator’s voiceover that matches the one from The Thin Red Line (1998) in tone, it seems that film would be derivative, a sort of Seventh Day Adventist version of Terrence Malick’s contemplation of spirituality in war. However, that type of narration was never repeated which made the opening stick out oddly as if director Gibson hadn’t thought the film through.

The rest of the film supports Gibson being a little rusty around the edges with his come back directorial effort and Hacksaw Ridge is a little too straight forward and too derivative. Thankfully, the story is interesting and compelling on its own, and the acting very good. A Summit Entertainment release, Hacksaw Ridge, which is in theaters now, is rated R for intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence including grisly bloody images and a long 131 minutes.

   Hacksaw Ridge Director Mel Gibson tells the story of the real-life Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), as a conscientious objector during WWII who enlisted but continued to refuse to carry or fire a gun. He still becomes A WWII hero for saving many lives.

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