Review: Hacksaw Ridge

There's a small but harrowing moment in the midst of one of the many unforgettable war scenes of Mel Gibson's latest directorial effort, where an American and Japanese soldier unleash primal screams of unbridled rage, as their flailing limbs interlock in a violent embrace, and a grenade goes off between them. War is hell, mindless hell for both sides, one which drives men to the very edge - quite literally, here, in the setting of the titular ridge, a battleground enclosed by the cliff face of Maeda Escarpment in Okinawa. There is no good or bad in killing, only pain and suffering that blurs all such distinctions; Mel Gibson's latest film depicts war vividly, but refuses to glorify it in the process.

And yet ultimately, Hacksaw Ridge, though immersing the viewer in a bleak and horrible setting where horrors and fears set in even before the first bullets are fired, is at the same time the most inspirational film of the year, and I'd argue this decade so far. As viscerally realized as the terrifying state of war, is the focal figure of our story, real-life war hero Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a Seventh-day Adventist Christian who enlists in WWII as a conscientious objector, a combat medic who goes into battle without a single weapon to protect himself, and wound up rescuing over 75 soldiers in the Battle of Okinawa.

It's a fantastic real-life story, to be sure, and Gibson himself has admitted that creative licence was not required often in the planning stages of Hacksaw Ridge; all the heroism and drama is there in the life and times of Desmond Doss. Yet a great real-life story or figure is not a guarantee of a great film. The onus was on Gibson, a man who has experienced his fair share of controversy over the past few years with regards to his personal life, to not only distance himself from those unfortunate incidents in the public eye, but also the purity of his work as an actor and director. For some, recent incidents have retroactively tainted his work as an actor (which I don't quite buy even though I'm not the hugest fan), and a director (which I completely disagree with since I still think Braveheart and Apocalypto are stupendous directorial achievements). As for this film, some have called it a redemptive piece, a musing on peacefulness and morality in the face of insurmountable odds; now who am I to make judgement on whether it is or isn't, that's Gibson's personal business, and subject to opinion. What is undeniable is that he's crafted a film that is both a cinematic marvel in almost all regards, but also a powerful homage to a great man that never loses sight of what he stood for.

The film kicks off in medias res on the battlefields of burning bodies and relentless artillery firing, a taster so to speak of things to come as the voiceover of Desmond Doss muses over the resilience of God's kindness and love towards his children. What could seem overbearing and sanctimonious in the wrong hands is eloquently rendered in the mellifluous delivery of Garfield, spouting out his lines with an earnest and endearing Southern accent, and I was completely won over by Doss before I'd even gotten to properly meet him. Meet him we do, by going back to his early life before the war, as Gibson's direction switches to an old-school, rather earnest style in depicting how Doss becomes the man we glimpsed briefly on the battlefields.

The tone and style of these scenes might put some off as they are largely rather old-fashionably wholesome in their approach, with Doss' courtship of his future wife Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer) in particular hearkening back to the days of Howard Hawks and (dare I say it) a bit of Frank Capra. Though simple, however, these scenes of Desmond and Dorothy never feel out of place. The two actors establish a chemistry and understated love between the two that pulsates throughout the film even through the second half. Undercutting the 'aw shucks' courtships of Desmond and his general happy-go-lucky attitude (he loves birds and walks through the woods, he helps his mum out decorating the church) are Desmond's father (Hugo Weaving), an alcoholic WWI veteran haunted by the deaths of his brothers in arms, a growing interest in medicine, and news from the front lines which build up to Desmond enlisting. These formative experiences all help in one way or the other to give a sense of his code of religious pacifism, and his natural compulsion to help others as a US army medic. Some might consider these scenes a drag, but they are absolutely essential to making the film work as well as it does.

Things kick off into higher gear once Desmond goes off to war camp, and if comparisons to Forrest Gump may have come in to your mind from the early suburban scenes of sweet awkward Desmond Doss, then the trials of Private Doss will immediately subvert that from the moment Vince Vaughn's Sergeant Howell, an deliciously comedic spin on the drill sergeant commander role, steps in to mouth off and insult every man in his regiment. Tougher times lie ahead, and while Desmond is every bit the physically adept, driven and respectful soldier like ol' Gump (and a quick runner too, to boot), there's a catch: he refuses to even touch a rifle due to his pacifist stance of not killing. This section in the film is rather excellent and reminded me of Paths of Glory in more ways than one, as nailbiting scenes of Army trials and tribulations present out hero with his first adversities. Doss gets an awful lot of shit from both the higher up authorities and his fellow soldiers for what they see as 'cowardice', but what he sees as sticking to his principles in the face of adversity: participating in a war not through violence, but to help piece together what it shatters through violence.

And shatter it does, physically and emotionally on the soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division. From the very moment they enter Okinawa and watch rows of wagons carrying dead, dying and disillusioned soldiers, the stench of death and decay can be felt in every frame. Gibson's work up to that point is stellar, but it's from the moment we enter the war zone where he makes a case for some of the best direction of not only his career, but of any war film ever. Gibson builds the tension up to unbearable levels and releases it into unrelenting bursts of violence, the gore terrifying but never excessive, as we watch valiant men crushed by the enemy forces. Some dive in with courage and hardboiled conviction, others are realistically portrayed as terrified and out of their element, and many are mown down in great numbers. The chaotic incoherence in many action films nowadays is nowhere to be found here; each brutal death on either side is realized in often brief but incredibly effective fashion. The cinematography of Simon Duggan, and the concise editing of John Gilbert create a visual experience of war like few others, the flames and gunfire against the stark gray landscape creating some unforgettable images. Perhaps even more impressive, though, is the sound editing: each gunshot and scream imprints itself so powerfully in your mind, that I think I'll need a re-watch to properly appreciate how the terrific work of the sound department amplifies the visual work through its immersive enclosure of the audience.

Gibson combines all these elements together to create a great depiction of a terrible war, seemingly having taken a few pages out of Terence Malick and Peter Weir's notebooks on how to create beautiful horror in warfare. What pushes his direction a step further is the inspirational element he brings to it through all the chaos. As he did with the romanticized tale of William Wallace, Gibson treads the fine line between misery and hope brilliantly and never loses sight of his protagonist's emotionally empowering journey as a saviour to his people. Unlike the largely fictionalized exploits of Wallace, however, all Private Doss did was real. If you haven't watched any of the trailers yet, I'd advise you not to - it further enhances the impact of his acts of courage if you're watching them all for the first time, scrambling across the battlefields, finding strategic ways of helping his comrades that cleverly hearken back to earlier scenes, and uttering words of comfort and solace to the wounded and dying. There's a powerful core to every action of this fast-moving Private that not even the great Braveheart touched in how such a 'coward' can be in the spur of the moment, the bravest man on the battlefields without raising a gun. His heroism is handled in a largely realistic fashion, as you can feel the strain and effort of every life saved at Desmond's hands, and the fear at being discovered and killed by the Japanese, that even the scenes which stretch the boundaries of reality a bit (for example, a somewhat Hollywood-esque bout of sniper-ing by Vince Vaughan, and a crucial act of bravery on Desmond Doss' behalf in the last act that actually happened) feel completely earnt. Like Jesus walked on water, you'll believe this Desmond can do just about anything.

Note I haven't talked all that much about the central performance thus far; I feel I'll be talking a lot about him come awards season thus far, so for now I'll be coy. But, without giving away too much, one particular scene where he internalizes a distraught pleading to God into a dignified conviction in the Lord's command is some of the finest bit of acting I've seen so far this year. I'm so glad his release from The Amazing Spider-Man series has brought such great projects to him; can't wait till Silence. And though Garfield is the star and centrepiece, the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent too. Palmer is a charming and infectious presence, making the most out of a very simple love interest character, while Weaving gives what might be a career-best turn as the distraught, abusive but deep down, loving father figure whose big scenes are some of the film's most affecting - I could've gone for a lot more of him. On the soldier front, Vaughan is a rather enjoyable, off-kilter presence as the abrasive 'mentor' to the men, Sam Worthington's Captain Glover is a stoic but emphatic presence, and all of Doss' cohorts make a collective impact in their reactions to the war (a re-watch will be required to pick out particular standouts since everyone was on point, but I liked Luke Pegler's Hollywood Zane a great deal). Special credit must go to Luke Bracey who manages to transition his callous bully in the camp scenes to a real hero by the end of his war scenes.

Though it's tempting to pine for what would have been the second and undoubtedly brilliant collaboration between James Horner and Mel Gibson before the former's untimely death, Rupert Gregson-William's score is in itself a masterful bit of work that enhances the emotional impact or tension of every scene without going overboard, helping to drive forward a very strong and well-rounded screenplay by Andrew Knight and Robert Schnekkan. Some might consider the presentation of the enemy Japanese as overly simplistic, but I'd say that's kind of the point of the film: the adversaries are almost always viewed from afar as distant but lethal threats, bar two scenes, one which I'm still ruminating over whether it's entirely necessary, but the other which is one of the most powerful scenes of the film, a sort of The Thin Red Line statement of how in death we are all at one with another.

Speaking of which, the film shows Desmond Doss treating and rescuing Japanese soldiers, which he certainly did partake in his real-life exploits. Reading about the real-life truths of his service (http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/hacksaw-ridge/) shows what a truly heroic figure he was, to the extent that Gibson had to leave some stuff out like his rescuing of a wounded soldier after being heavily wounded by sniper fire himself. Simply put, this is a brilliant film, my favourite of 2016 (and it'll take something amazing to top this), and if I had to summarize it with a comparison, I'd say it's a bit of Mr Smith Goes to Washington in Garfield's portrayal of an ultimate Jimmy Stewart-esque do-gooder with full-bodied sincerity and convcition in the face of overwhelming odds, with the great war vibes of The Thin Red Line and Paths of Glory as aforementioned. And don't be surprised if after you check it out, Desmond Doss' 'Please, Lord, let me get one more' rings again and again in your head; it's an unforgettable experience.

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