Hacksaw Ridge - The Notebook meets Tropic Thunder (feat. racist undertones)

Rating: 4/10 (11 November 2019)

(4 out of 10 stars; minor spoilers included which do not give away much as this is "based on a true story" and apart from that the movie is terribly predictable)
Upfront, I would like to say that I have been rather susceptible to Mel Gibson's work in the past: Absolute fan of Braveheart, pretty impressed by Apocalypto and I could even get something out of The Passion. When watching his movies, I was usually able to overlook their weaknesses (such as the rather simple stories and dialogue, Mel's limited directing skills, overloads of pathos, gratuitous violence etc.) and allow myself to get hooked by their sheer overwhelming force and to enjoy the emotional ride.
This time, it just did not work for me. At all.
I do not want to go that much into the first third of the movie. A lot has been said about how cheesy and kitschy and clichéd it is. It actually reminded me of The Notebook (which I do not mean as a compliment).
The second third to me was basically a sort of blasphemy. If you try and take on Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, you can only lose. Especially, if your name is Mel Gibson. And in my opinion, he staged the military training part not so much as a quote and a bow to Kubrick, but sort of try to remake it. That was just bad. All these cardboard dudes in the barracks were also not really convincing. Of course, the meanest of them all in the end becomes sort of our hero's best friend.
The military trial scene was also rather ridiculous. Apparently, the right to refuse to serve for reasons of conscience was in the Constitution all along. Why did it take a letter from the major General to convince the court of that? And WHY was that same General already sitting in the room all along without saying anything??? "True story" or not, I am sure this is not, how it played out.
The whole war scenes were just too much. I am not faint of heart and I actually enjoy violent movies. If the violence serves a purpose or delivers a point made by the director. It is one thing to depict violence to show the audience the horrors and the pointlessness of war. However, Mel is just wallowing in exploding bodies and heads, severed heads and limbs, burning people, protruding innards and intestines, gushering pools of blood from open wounds and whining dying soldiers. It is just too much and actually bored me already in the very first opening scene.
Apart from that, the action is not realistic. The battle is a complete mess, with people from both sides everywhere all the time like in a sword fight (this is NOT Braveheart). Then all these explosions that have people and body parts constantly flying all over. It really reminded me of Tropic Thunder. I read a review from an actual combat veteran, saying that this depiction was utter BS and not remotely close to actual war.
What also really bugged me was the unrealistic set-up and actions. It would have been a matter of seconds for the Japanes, occupying the cliff, to just cut the damn cargo-net off and ending the U.S. attacks for good. Apart from that, why did they not constantly just bombard the U.S. troops below from the ledge. Instead, they let them climb up every time and went at them only then. "True story" or not, I am sure that the actual fight went down differently.
Another major problem I had was with the incredibly depiction of the Japanese which reminded me of an 80ies Chuck Norris Vietnam action movie. Rambo III was more nuanced and human in its portrayal of the Russians than this film. The Japanese soldiers in this movie are portrayed as faceless, blood-thirsty, almost super natural creatures who know no fear or sympathy ("Nobody can survive this..." "Well, they can."). They just keep attacking, coming wave after wave, screaming frantically while they butcher the soldiers as if they were enjoying killing just for the sake of it. While the noble U.S. soldiers only see killing as a necessary evil in fulfilling their heavenly duty to protect their glorious home country and their comrades. When the evil Japanese are finally defeated, they come crawling out of their holes (literally), suddenly looking like broken animals (all of them are only wearing torn underwear at this point). Even now, of course, they can't be trusted. Waving a white flag in one hand, they insidiously toss a grenade at the U.S. soldiers with the other; giving them a welcome reason to gun down even the defeated Japanese. The only dignity, Mel grants to them, is the one of committing ritualized Seppuku in the face of defeat (as does the General in one of the final scenes).
I don't even want to go into the whole topic of religion and faith and how it is shown in the movie. It is even hard to criticise, considering we are watching a Mel Gibson film after all. It still was laughable, though.
One big surprise for me was actually this: When his girl visited him in prison and gave him.... ta-daah... a bible (what else?!), I was 100 % sure that the bible was going to stop a bullet to his heart in a later battle scene. Surprisingly, it did not. You got me on this one, Mel...
The 4 stars awarded are mostly for production value.