NOVEMBER 2, 2016
Here’s a sentence I haven’t written in the last 10 years — let’s talk about Mel Gibson.
The Academy Award-winning actor/director has been essentially an international pariah for the past 10 years for anti-Semitic comments he made during a DUI traffic stop in 2006. His problems with alcohol, anti-Semitism and homophobia go back several decades, but once his “f—ing Jews” remarks became public, he was essentially blackballed from the industry for the past decade.
Yes, he worked now and then, usually in straight-to-video action thrillers, and his friend Jodie Foster, with whom he co-starred in 1994’s “Maverick,” gave him a starring role in her 2011 dramedy “The Beaver,” but the film flopped badly, and Gibson was sent back to movie Siberia.
So it was a surprise when it was announced that he would direct “Hacksaw Ridge” for Summit/Lionsgate, a big-studio, big-deal production. It seemed that Hollywood was ready to forgive. But did Mel step up to the opportunity?
I don’t know Mel Gibson personally, but that doesn’t stop me from judging him, and even if he is a horrible human being, he’s a pretty good film director. (Knowing film history, I can assure you that the two are not mutually exclusive.)
“Hacksaw Ridge” is based on the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), an Army medic in World War II who was the only conscientious objector ever to be awarded the Medal of Honor. It’s a full-on, old-fashioned war movie, the likes of which we haven’t seen since “Saving Private Ryan.” But “Hacksaw Ridge” takes an entirely different approach.
Screenwriters Robert Schenkkan (“All the Way”) and Andrew Knight essentially divide Doss’ story into three parts. The first is his pre-war life in Virginia, where he lives with his abusive father (Hugo Weaving) and victimized mother (Rachel Griffiths). Having tasted violence several times in his young life, Doss, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, knows that he must enlist in the war effort, but he is determined not to pick up a gun — as a medic, he is there to heal and not kill. So he leaves his girlfriend Dorothy (Teresa Palmer, very good) and heads out to the front lines.
On to Army life, which goes pretty much the way you think it would for a conscientious objector. There’s lots of trying to make an example of him, usually at the hands of a tough drill sergeant (Vince Vaughn), getting called “coward” and getting beaten up at the hands of his fellow GIs. That section is all pretty routine, but the film sparks to life during the actual battle of Hacksaw Ridge in Okinawa in 1945. American forces had to climb a sheer cliff-face via a rope ladder to get to the bluff where they take on Japanese troops who have been holding the territory.
As you may remember from Gibson’s Oscar-winning direction of “Bravehart,” Gibson handles action pretty well. and the battle scenes here are a nice reminder of what he is capable of doing. It’s not quite the equivalent of Spielberg’s work in “Private Ryan,” but it’s still good work nonetheless. And it is in the aftermath of the battle, where, after having his squad pull out, an unarmed Doss rushes back into harm’s way in order to rescue his wounded comrades off the battlefield and pull them to safety, is where the meat of the film lies.
It is in these scenes where Garfield really shines. I would say that “Hacksaw Ridge” is his best work on film to date, even better than his performance in “The Social Network.” Garfield manages to ground this film in reality, so that “Hacksaw Ridge” is more than just a generic World War II picture but one with a beating pulse of a man who is drawn to duty but unwilling to betray his deepest-held beliefs.
When trailers for “Hacksaw Ridge” first began showing in theaters several months ago, it was kind of amusing to see to what lengths the producers went to avoid saying the director’s name (“From the director of BRAVEHEART!” was about as far as they would go.) Mel Gibson was truly He Who Must Not Be Named. (More recent ads have gotten a little bit braver.)
And I’m sure that there are some people who, once they learn that Mel Gibson directed this film, will boycott the movie, and they have a perfect right to do that. But if you’re considering that option as well, please know that you’d be missing an honorable anti-war war movie and a very good lead performance, and that would be a pity.
GRADE: B
