Mel Gibson Fishing For Compliments

Rating: 5/10 (26 January 2017)

Well, the first hour of Hacksaw Ridge is very sloooow and of course the hero marries a beautiful nurse he met... Yawn. After that you get a long-stretched and far more brutal version of Forrest Gumps Nam-hero scenes, sometimes underlined with very cheesy emotional music. Well, after all the fuzz over Mr. Gibsons behavior he must ofc deliver something to get back a favorable public opinion. I liked Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ a lot, also Apocalypto, and ofc Braveheart, but compared this is rather a weak movie.
I don't know why but between all the explosions and killed soldiers and the gore I don't see why this movie should be a new classic or Oscar material at all. Compared with (anti-)war movies like Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, Paths of Glory, Das Boot, Hotel Rwanda and the like I find this output of Mr. Gibson rather mediocre.
Well, sure we get some fine action scenes and lots of gore but this imo don't defines a (anti-) war-movie as a good one, the story of this one is rather stereotypical and stereotypical told and not very interesting - I mean with or without gun, there were and are thousands of medics always "in action", without such fuss about having no gun or having a gun. A movie told about a unit of medics, that would have been something to honor those men (and women), but this movie is something about a stubborn Christian guy which in my view is not very likable (all ppl talking to and with god are in my view highly suspicious ;)) I will just raise one question - if those hero has the choice to grab a gun and shoot a Japanese soldier to save one comrades life - what would be his decision!? This movie gives no answer to questions like this and is therefore imo just sentimental and a praise of Christian belief without contributing anything new to the questions war and its realities raise.
And the last "heroic" scene - our medic praying and the unit waiting for him to finish before to start the attack and then the attack in slow-mow with VERY cheesy music - this is just bad, a persiflage, a comical end to something who tries to be a movie about a serious matter. In the end our hero even plays football with nades... And ofc with help of the prayer of our hero and the help of the old god of Abraham the US boys beat the evil Japanese. No more to be said.
note: the nades kicking scene raises in my view the question how many ppl our hero killed (friends and enemies) unintentionally in just kicking them away in an overcrowded battlefield like depicted ;)