Hacksaw Ridge

HACKSAW RIDGE

Director : Mel Gibson

Year : 2017

Genre : Drama

Rating : ****

''The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting''
- Sun Tzu

The extraordinary true story of the US combat medic and conscientious objector Desmond Doss, the first American to ever receive the prestigious Medal of Honor without firing a single shot is bought to the big screen with a ferociously idiosyncratic intensity by Mel Gibson in 'Hacksaw Ridge', a thrilling yet sometimes overbearing World War II epic which piles on an unprecedented amount of blood and gore but provides little in the way of subtlety. 

Fresh from starring in Martin Scorsese's divisive religious epic 'Silence', Andrew Garfield delivers another impressive performance as the heroic Doss who, despite a personal and religious aversion to weaponry, managed to save over 70 lives at the Battle Of Okinawa in 1945. The first hour of 'Hacksaw Ridge' documenting Doss's traumatic childhood and his life before war is efficiently executed, even if the army training scenes play a lot like Stanley Kubrick's superior war drama 'Full Metal Jacket' and his developing romance with a nurse ('Lights Out' starlet Teresa Palmer), while sweet, lacks any real emotional heft. But it is once the movie travels across the Pacific and we climb the titular Japanese escarpment that 'Hacksaw Ridge' truly begins to show it's true colours. And they are predominantly red.

Anyone familiar with Gibson's viscera-strewn filmography which includes 'Braveheart', 'Apocalypto' and the ultra-violent 'The Passion Of The Christ' will know that he is a director who doesn't hold back when it comes to on-screen carnage and 'Hacksaw Ridge' arguably sees him at his most horrific - with appropriately sickening depictions of dismemberment, evisceration and decapitation all shown in grisly, gruesome detail. Thankfully, these moments are exceedingly well shot by cinematographer Simon Duggan so rather than appearing exploitative or gratuitous, these admittedly harrowing scenes help to emphasize the courage of it's characters as well as making the action scenes that much more realistic and terrifying. It is just a shame that while the key battle set pieces are truly unforgettable, the same cannot be said for pretty conventional scenes that precede them. 

Despite it's rather pedestrian first hour however, as a war movie, 'Hacksaw Ridge' is undeniably very good indeed (as its 6 Academy Award nominations clearly demonstrates) and proves that Mel Gibson is not only a masterful filmmaker but that he has managed to overcome the savage controversy that has dogged his career for the worst part of a decade. 'Hacksaw Ridge' is a relentless portrait of one man's pacifism and self-belief in the face of abject horror but on a broader spectrum, it also serves as Gibson's long-awaited redemption and rehabilitation back into Hollywood.