A Great Story, Poorly Told

Rating: 3/10 (3 April 2017)

Hacksaw Ridge is ultimately a good film made about a great story that squanders much of its potential with wooden dialogue, countless clichés, and telegraphed punches rather than foreshadowing.
When I saw the movie, I didn't know much about it and somehow missed in the opening credits that it was directed by Mel Gibson, but as I watched, I remember repeatedly saying to myself, "Man, someone has a persecution complex." Doss' pacifism was a central theme; it was so integral to the plot, that nobody could have missed it if it had not been treated so heavy-handedly. This would have been much better if it had been a war movie in which the protagonist takes a philosophical stand, rather than a movie about a man being persecuted for his beliefs (often fairly) with the war going on as a sub-plot and vehicle for it.
The grisly violence portrayed in the war scenes failed to create the atmosphere of a battlefield in the same way that better directed movies did; the reliance on graphic violence served to highlight the lack of tension and fear that should have been palpable, as we've been given in Full Metal Jacket or Saving Private Ryan, for that matter.
Still, the backbone of truth in the story is strong enough to overcome many of the film's shortcomings. Though most of the characters were just cartoon sketches of real people (many of them pretty cheesy), they were hard not to like... especially Doss himself, and his broken father.