It’s fairly safe to assume that Mel Gibson’s latest directorial effort, the WWII drama Hacksaw Ridge, will never be considered one of the director’s greatest triumphs. This is mainly due to Gibson’s grandiose style of filmmaking, which at times finds itself squarely at odds with the decidedly personal and intimate aspects of this film’s script. What results ends up being a small scale story from a grand scope director who can count the epics Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ on his resume. While this means that Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t always work, it does manage to connect when it needs to because its ideology and core themes themselves are grand.
Hacksaw Ridge tells the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a young man from the south whose decision to serve as an Army medic in WWII was met with strong objection from Army officials and fellow soldiers alike due to his refusal to shoot or even carry a rifle. The film chronicles how, despite this, Doss ended up serving his country by saving 75 men and becoming the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
While Gibson has clearly proven himself to be firmly at home in large, cinematic epics featuring dynamic action sequences, Hacksaw Ridge shows that the smaller, human moments are clearly not in his wheelhouse. So much of what happens in the first two acts of Hacksaw Ridge feels shamelessly preachy and sentimental. At times, Gibson directs scenes featuring personal moments between individuals with the kind of heft reserved for Disney movies. Case in point: showing how the story’s hero falls in love with both medicine and a pretty nurse named Dorothy (Teresa Palmer) all in the same camera pan. Meanwhile, the director packs the second act with a seemingly endless stream of comedy (most of it coming courtesy of Vince Vaughn as a “tough” Army Sergeant) which feels so out of place and chips away at both the integrity and credibility of the film.
And yet, what makes Hacksaw Ridge work as well as it does are the notions of conviction and principle its central figure so proudly embodies. For Desmond, the war is not about fighting, it’s about doing what is right; and while to many there may be no difference between those two ideas, for him, they are worlds apart. His desire to never touch a rifle is met with the strongest of criticism from all sides, especially by many in his unit who proceed to make life unbearable for him. Yet Desmond forgives them for the sheer fact that although they don’t agree with him, they themselves contain the same passion as he does. In the end, Desmond not only redefines the notion of bravery by marching onto the battlefield unprotected, but he also redefines the image of a soldier by doing what he can to protect his fellow soldiers and serve his country. In Desmond’s eyes, he’s not there to fight, but rather serve.
Garfield makes his character work well and helps excuse some of the weaker moments of the script. He projects the right level of truth and conviction in every scene, giving one of his most accomplished performances to date. Sam Worthington as Doss’s commanding officer does solid work, Palmer is lovely, and Hugo Weaving as Desmond’s father is truly heartbreaking as an illustration of how war can change a person. If there’s one weak link among the cast it’s Vaughn, who never finds the right tone in his performance, which in the end might have worked, had this indeed been a Disney comedy.
As expected, when Desmond and his fellow officers go off to war, the rest of Hacksaw Ridge takes on a different life. Gibson shoots all of the war scenes with such great care, full of suspense, action, and tension. One moment in which Gibson beautifully weaves character and suspense together to create something truly poignant happens when Doss discovers a wounded Japanese soldier who is hiding, to whom he gives both gauze and morphine. It’s a scene which speaks volumes of the young man’s intent, purpose, and beliefs and how his objective wasn’t to win the war, but to help those who chose to fight it. Hacksaw Ridge may well be the director’s weakest film, but moments such as that one make it a richly involving story worth experiencing.
Hacksaw Ridge opens in the U.S. on November 4, 2016.
Originally published at cinapse.co on November 4, 2016.
