The true story behind Hacksaw Ridge is incredible. Private Desmond T. Doss saved the lives of many men in the devastating WWII battle for Okinawa and was the first (of three) conscientious objectors (the military’s term for one who refuses to kill on moral or religious grounds) to receive the United States’ highest military award, The Medal of Honor.
Unfortunately, that will make it difficult to give this movie such a negative review, especially without revealing too much more of the plot. I will say that, if anything, the real events were more incredible than what is portrayed; the real deeds more heroic; the real life more difficult. And that’s the issue I take with Mel Gibson’s writing and direction. He filmed this far too… easily, as though he had pulled every plot point, every scene, out of a jar or a bin of Legos and dropped them in place.
He rapidly established all of Dodd’s motivators in the first act: the brother he almost kills as a boy, the father who’s angry and bitter about the first world war, the religious mother, and the girl he must come home to. Now, let’s play a game. Given these character descriptions, take a guess at some scenes that establish them. If you said, “the father drunkenly fights with the mom while the kids are in bed listening (but apparently he doesn’t hit her,) and Desmond takes the girl for a first date to a movie theater (where he subsequently gets the courage to kiss her,)” then you’d be absolutely right. None of the characters are any deeper than what is required to advance the story.
It doesn’t end there. Act 2: off to training camp. Here Desmond enters the bunks, where he’s introduced to a whole room of clichés. There’s a pretty boy who calls himself Hollywood, and the sergeant who puts everyone in their place but has a heart of gold. Wow, for soldiers, their language is so polite! Not one cuss word from the lot. Closest thing we get to talk about sex is someone (This is the square-chinned blonde guy who judges poor Desmond too harshly but later they’re best friends. I won’t tell you what happens to him, but you can probably guess.) says, “she’d be happier with a guy like me.” Wow, mister, better wash out that mouth of yours.
Act 3: war. Don’t worry, none of this lovable bunch of scoundrels dies in the first day of fighting. Only the ones we don’t know. What are the odds?
Okay, I’m not going to lie, I reacted along with everyone else in the audience. The dialogue was, well, there wasn’t much dialogue, but there was banter, and it was witty. The characters were actually lovable, if exceptionally shallow.
And the war. The war was visceral. It demanded attention, demanded reaction, and it got it. I’m not going to say it was well shot, because it wasn’t. It was all floating cameras and short cut scenes and bodies in flames. But it was violent. It looked like war.
The absolute best part of this movie, however, was the only part Gibson didn’t film. After the fade-to-black, there are three minutes of documentary, historical footage and interviews, that verify some of the points in the film. Unfortunately for the film, I would have rather seen two hours of this – two hours of people that are less beautiful and more heroic. Less predictable and more real.
