It's just another war film.

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2017)

With the praise this film has received you'd think this is on par with with Saving Private Ryan and Apocalypse Now as far as war films go.But Hacksaw Ridge is a far cry from those classics. As much as critics would like you to believe it, this is no reinvention of the war film genre, if anything this is a well-made film that despite it's intriguing plot setup, ends up being your average war picture.
The film is eerily similar to Full Metal Jacket (whose first half is one of the most effective showcases of the horrors of the military i've ever seen), but it never seems to hit on the same emotional level, far from it actually. It's blindingly obvious from these scenes who the "important" characters will be during actual brutal war segments. Of course the soldier who is most out-spoken against the main character is going to be one who bonds with him in a very unemotional scene during the battle before dying a very expected death.
You never feel connected to any of the characters in this film, with the exception of the main, and that is a big issue. It's clear that he will not die during this, and then everyone else just becomes background noise in the war. You have the regular shock and gore of your typical war film, but this film lacks any kind of deeper purpose beyond this.
It will never be as emotional as Saving Private Ryan. It will never be as captivating and metaphorical as Apocalypse Now. It will just go down as a nice little war film that your dad will enjoy. Nothing more and nothing less.