Hacksaw Ridge: A Different Type of War Story

A nagging thought that bugged me while I was watching Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge is that its title doesn't really do justice to its goals. This is a movie not about the battle fought on Okinawa, but about a man with strong convictions who chose to fight it his own way, and it lays down an unusual framework that rubs against our culture at large in a way that I wasn’t used to. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, and one thing I grew up accepting is that Christian movies would just be terrible. Yes, they were being released into a culture eager to rip them apart for any and every reason, but that didn’t change their preachy, underwritten quality and poor production values, such that they seemed to be under a curse. To an extent, Hacksaw Ridge breaks that curse by approaching its subject matter with the intent to make not a good Christian movie, but a good movie that happens to have a Christian in it. I know I’ve said some variation of that phrase many times in my reviews, but it’s a common thread that filmmakers everywhere would be wise to pull, no matter their life convictions.

On the flip side of the issue, I distinctly remember the glowing 4.9-out-of-5 audience score that Google users gave this movie, and though it’s much better than your average religious fare, such a reaction sometimes obscured its flaws. Hacksaw Ridge is a war movie about a man who doesn’t believe in making war, and we’ve sometimes made more of it than it deserved in our zeal to get behind a good Christian movie, which I think has detracted from some of the impact it could have had. I always want to approach a movie with fairness, and the thing – or person – that makes this movie chug is Andrew Garfield and his performance as Desmond Doss, a very real man who wouldn’t touch a gun because he was convinced that killing another person was the worst sin of all; Hacksaw Ridge explores the events that formed his conviction twice, first in a relatively forgettable scene of Doss as a child, and second in an unquestionably powerful flashback. Doss would go on to serve as a medic on Okinawa during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, and this movie simply documents the feats that made him one of only three conscientious objectors ever to win the Medal of Honor. It is at its best not when shooting people or blowing their heads off, not even when showing us Doss’s reasons for his convictions, but when it’s demonstrating his deep care for others around him, a care so tender that the men around him want to call him cowardly for it.

Hacksaw Ridge is an unremittingly brutal movie for at least its last half. Gibson juxtaposes monologued Bible verses and serene, sweeping music with some of the most brutal violence I’ve ever seen in a war movie – I recommend not eating before watching it. This movie is not subtle, but Gibson isn’t known for his subtlety, which is fine by me because I knew what I was in for. He revels in rubbing your face in as many gory, horrible sights as he possibly can, but his movie has an undeniable grit to it, and when only half of it is dedicated to this carnage, it actually doesn’t lose its edge as much as it might sound like I'm suggesting. This is a war movie with a lot of war in it, yet it's about a man who doesn’t believe in making it. The tension is obvious and far from a revelation, but it’s there, and Hacksaw Ridge tests how far a man’s convictions can take him at pitch intensity.

It is also an old-fashioned movie, one brimming with old-school romance and church choirs whenever we aren’t seeing heads blown off, God rest the souls and the eyes of those old church ladies if they did. It feels like the sort of movie that would be super popular forty years ago, not in a bad way, and it's so often a comforting watch, which I wrote was a weird thing to say when I knew that it would turn into one of the most graphic blockbusters I’ve ever seen. It has that they don’t make them like they used to energy, not in a way that makes it better than other modern war movies, but in a way that makes it different from them. Doss is still going to have to put up with a chunk of bullying from his own men for refusing to touch a gun, but there’s something remarkable about watching a man peacefully stand up for his convictions, especially when surrounded by men eager to bring death to the enemy – and annoyance and pain to Doss – while he only hopes to save some of them once everything actually hits the fan. Doss becomes invaluable to them once he saves many of their lives, and there is a real catharsis to watching the men who used to hate him for his refusal to carry a weapon bond with him in the heat of combat.

Money is an important issue for even the most devout Seventh-day Adventist, and despite its best intentions, it’s obvious that the budget isn’t always there for Hacksaw Ridge. especially when Doss and his company get shipped out to Okinawa. Many of the CGI-inserted elements are underdone, standing out in an uncanny, unnatural way. The ridge itself looks like it was plastered against the bare sky in After Effects, and the inserted military technology and weaponry seem like they were shot elsewhere and then superimposed onto the movie, like some kind of poorly-placed band-aid. Some of the color grading here is also a tad lifeless, like the movie is trying to look too gray and serious, and then too colorful and cathartic. Much of this could have been remedied by a touch of restraint, the same type of restraint that Garfield brings to his performance as Doss, for which he received a well-deserved Oscar nomination.

Desmond Doss is the heartbeat of Hacksaw Ridge, the man who makes me wonder whether this movie would have been better off with a different name, as it is about not a hacksaw, but the man who would dig it out of your flesh and then patch you up with all the care of the best nurse money can buy, and all for the meager pay of about two dollars an hour, adjusted for inflation. He and his refusal to carry a gun are the cornerstone of this movie, and through hell and back, they carry the whole ordeal. He is its heart and soul, emphasis on the heart. This movie is most interesting and compelling when it is about him and his beliefs rather than the broader context of his company or the war they’re fighting. This movie treats some of its cast members like an obligation, which is a weird thing to say about a historical film, but Garfield elevates it with a touch of nuance and humanity that I'm not sure Gibson and his screenplay anticipated. What I am sure of is that the real Doss would have been proud.

Hacksaw Ridge - 7/10

Luke 6:6-11