Review // Hacksaw Ridge

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Mel Gibson returns to the director’s chair after a ten year hiatus with the riveting war epic Hacksaw Ridge. Named for a cruel promontory of rock on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the film follows Desmond Doss, an American medic and pacifist who ran headlong into one of World War II’s bloodiest battles and came out the first conscientious objector ever to win the Medal of Honour. 

Andrew Garfield stars as Doss, a rough and tumble country boy who he plays with a naive charm that borders on Forrest Gump. We’re introduced to Doss as he and his brother scale the cliffs behind their house, raising eyebrows amongst the townsfolk for their rough country ways. When a bout of wrestling gets out of hand and Doss clocks his brother in the head with a brick, he is so scarred by the act of violence he turns to religion, swearing off fighting forever. But that’s a prospect easier said than done considering he spends his nights defending his mother from his alcoholic, shell-shocked father, and the fact that the prospect of WWII looms on the horizon.

Of course the war is quickly upon us and though Doss wants to help he refuses to pick up a rifle. He decides to become a medic, an idea encouraged by Dorothy (Teresa Palmer), a charming young nurse who works at the local hospital. Though Doss and Dorothy enjoy a whirlwind courtship Doss’s attempts to enter the army aren’t nearly as simple. He’s ostracized by the men in his company for his refusal to fight and rejected by the military establishment. Why would a conscientious objector want to go to war? How do you reconcile religious beliefs that order you not to kill, with a fight against tyranny? These lofty questions are put to Doss again and again in the film’s first half, to which he answers with a determined shrug. It’s only with the help of his father’s connections that he is finally able to serve, or as the court-marshal judge states, “run into the hellfire of battle without a single weapon to protect yourself.” 

Though the first half has its charms it all feels like requisite blockbuster busy work by screenwriters Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan. One gets the feeling that Gibson is dutifully checking off the studio mandated story beats in order to make his war epic. We’re carried through thanks to the easy charm of Garfield, as well as strong performances from Hugo Weaving as Doss’s father, and Vince Vaughn as the sharp tongued but warm-hearted Sergeant Howell. Though Palmer is magnetic as Dorothy she is little more than a cheerleader before disappearing in the film’s second half. Thanks to the set-up heavy first act when Doss and his company finally do arrive at the base of the titular ridge – a tall, jagged cliff-face which the men have to climb vertically on rope ladders – you’re as anxious as the soldiers to get things started.

When the film hits the battlefield it is brutal, unrelenting and absolutely immersive. Thanks to the mud and smoke, the men are quickly transformed into desperate and indecipherable wraiths, moving through the chaos like islands of panic. And that panic reaches through the screen, gripping you and pulling you into the fray as bombs explode and directions become meaningless. Gibson’s great strength as a director has always been his treatment of action and here he has crafted some of the most powerful images of armed conflict  put to screen since Saving Private Ryan. It is a white-knuckle thrill ride that will effect even the most detached and hard-hearted viewer.

It’s also a powerful new look at the realities of combat. Though Gibson delights in presenting us with every torn away limb or abdomen spewing offal, he also shows us faces. As the American soldiers are pushed back by the Japanese, Doss stays atop the ridge, driven by his beliefs to save every man he can. As he runs through the fury to help the wounded, each suffering man is a like a testament against violence, or an affirmation of Doss’s pacifism. It’s not preachy or sanctimonious, it might be cheesy, but there’s no denying that it’s powerful as all hell.

Gibson’s delight in gore can at times slip into the realm of fetishization, and the screenplay may lean on cliches in its opening half, but by its conclusion the film is forgiven. Hacksaw Ridge represents a triumphant return to the big screen for Mel Gibson. It also marks some long-deserved recognition of one of America’s most courageous and unique war heroes. I can only assume that the reason Desmond Doss’s story had not been adapted for the screen earlier, is that it’s so preposterous no screenwriter ever had the guts to pitch it.

Reviewed by Evan Arppe.