Hacksaw Ridge review: Andrew Garfield plays WWII hero Desmond Doss in this thrilling, impactful effort from director Mel Gibson.
Read our Hacksaw Ridge review below. The film opens across the UK on January 26th, 2017.
Mel Gibson hasn’t directed a film since 2006. That movie was the impressive Apocalypto, a film not in the English language that secured a tad over $120 million at the worldwide box-office, from a reported $40 million budget. The years that followed were not particularly kind to Gibson, both personally and, as as result, professionally. Now clear of his demons with Hollywood starting to welcome him in again – plus an acting career that is also looking on the up following last year’s impressive Blood Father, Gibson has delivered possibly his best directorial effort yet, the World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge.
‘Ridge’ revolves around the real-life character Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a young twenty-something intent on helping his country during WWII. The twist is that Doss refuses to pick up a gun, let alone fire one. The film charts his journey from his life with his family in his hometown, through to military training, and ultimately the battle ground of the notorious Hacksaw Ridge of the title; the trenches of Okinawa where he saved 75 lives without lifting a weapon of any kind. Subsequently, Doss received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his efforts, the first conscientious objector to do so.
Hacksaw Ridge is very much a film of two very distinct halves, and bears quite the cinematic structure with Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated 1980s Vietnam movie Full Metal Jacket. The first half of the film very much sets the scene, and charts Doss’s personal journey, from meeting true love Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer) to his testing early training days prior to battle, where he tries to bond with his peers, despite their rather anti-views on his refusal to engage with arms. The second half of the film is in complete contrast to the first, and hits like a ton of bricks as soon as the platoon peek over the top of Hacksaw Ridge for the very first time. Its climax is gritty, bloody and massively intense, sequence after sequence unrelenting from the time that the enemy’s very first bullet is fired.
Of course, the cast are magnificent. As well as the stand-out Garfield, who delivers a career-best, emotion-charged performance, you have the likes of Vince Vaughn, in a surprisingly decent turn as Sergeant Howell, the platoon’s leader, Hugo Weaving as Tom Doss, Desmond’s strict war hero father who suffers from his own personal demons, and Luke Bracey as the excellently named Smitty Ryker. He is also a stand-out, and the memory of that awful Point Break remake is finally starting to subside.
Then there’s Mel Gibson himself. It can be argued that no one like Gibson can stage a battle scene, and what’s on show here is as good with anything he’s done before. The grandness of Braveheart with the heart-breaking, intense realness of Saving Private Ryan. This is the filmmaker’s best film since his 1995 Oscar-winner. It may even be better.
The only thing that knocks it back is its glossiness in some areas, from it’s sun-drenched opening scenes, which could have been shaved back a little, to the rather over-staged ending which took me very much out of the movie – which is a shame as it had me right up until that point.
That said, it’s still certainly one of the highlights of the year so far. Completely engrossing, but furiously unrelenting – you have been warned. An outstanding piece of work.
Hacksaw Ridge review, Paul Heath, January 2017.
Hacksaw Ridge is released in UK cinemas on Thursday 26th January, 2017.
