good, grueling Gibson

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2016)

Mel Gibson makes the same film over and over. Nothing wrong with that as long as each successive mix of his favorite ingredients (brutish violence, morality, vengeance for wrongdoing, exhausting feats of endurance – all seasoned with humor) –adds depth to what we have already experienced. With "Hacksaw Ridge" Gibson sheds the more cartoonish excesses of his previous blockbuster, "Apocalypto," and manages to hold our hearts and minds for more than two grueling hours. Perhaps the last ten years of his public excoriation have taught him something pertinent to his art.
This true story of a conscientious objector (7th Day Adventist variety) who as an unarmed medic saved a staggering number of lives while under fire on the island of Okinawa in the closing days of World War Two is just as brutal as other Gibson epics and also contains a compensatory number of tender and quiet moments between parents, siblings and lovers on the home front. The pattern of "Hacksaw" is set early in the main character's childhood during one of those typical Gibsonian horseplay sequences when the hero-to-be nearly kills his brother by slamming a rock against his skull during a roughhousing episode. The shock of what he has almost done shakes him to his core and contributes to his understanding of the fragility of human life and his conviction that killing is a primary evil. His ordeal begins in basic training when his fellow soldiers ridicule, taunt and even assault the rather scrawny fellow who carries a Bible and refuses to even touch a gun. One by one they realize what an extraordinary human being is in their midst as his strength of character and valor are revealed by degrees through basic training, near-court martial and eventually to the shattering test of battle.
His relationship with his father (Hugo Weaving), an emotionally damaged, alcoholic World War One veteran, expands the story's perspective, setting the son's experience in a larger context of how each generation has to come to terms with war - that ugly primal fact of civilization.
Some negatives: Although the movie's opening seems off-puttingly reminiscent of the sentimental 70's TV series "The Waltons," it goes its own way soon enough. One line you could anticipate: Son, commenting on the father's nastiness: "Why does he hate me?" Mother: "He doesn't hate you, he hates himself – sometimes." Or this unlikely line: Sergeant, after soldiers have arrived on the smoldering shores of Okinawa: "We're not in Kansas any more, Dorothy." (Was that line really common jargon so soon after "The Wizard of Oz"s initial theatrical release? Didn't it really catch on later after the Baby Boom generation embraced the film on TV?) The netting of thick rope that enables Doss's company of soldiers to climb up and down the titular ridge somehow remains intact from day to day despite fierce and stubborn Japanese resistance. What prevented the Japanese from destroying this means of access during lulls in fighting?
A note on gore, which "Hacksaw" displays dozens of times: Global popular culture has become so saturated with images of dismemberment, death and decay that the only way an audience nowadays can be jolted by the sight of rats gnawing on blackened corpses or a pile of guts lying where there was previously a torso is when the editing introduces them by surprise, perhaps with a synthesizer blast as accompaniment. As with most extended battle sequences in movies, the explosions and blood spouts become a tedious blur and come to life only when the focus narrows to an individual or two making their way through the pandemonium. One of the more effective of such points in "Hacksaw" is when Doss conceals a wounded soldier by covering his head with dirt and all we see is a naked blue eye staring out in terror and wonderment at the passing thud of Japanese boots.
There are so many excellent performances by charismatic actors that it's hard to single one out over others. Teresa Palmer shines as Doss's wife; Vince Vaughn is very entertaining as the borderline sadistic wisecracking sergeant, who like a whole succession of characters slowly succumbs to the radiating power of Doss's singular faith. Several blond actors who play Doss's fellow soldiers give effective performances but after the movie ends it's hard to recall one from another.
Andrew Garfield as Doss just happens to be on screen most often and is definitely the center of the experience. He looks a bit like the young Richard Benjamin and as many have said, also resembles young Anthony Perkins, particularly Perkins as the Quaker Civil War soldier in "Friendly Persuasion," another movie about a pacifist caught in war.
Most of all "Hacksaw Ridge" is about the triumph of an underdog, courage, love, faith, human potential (from frailty and baseness to redemption and forgiveness) and how they are intertwined. And all of these themes are touchingly tied up at the end in a way I will not discuss here.