Hacksaw is finally out on DVD for Netflix. I got it the day it was released.
Being a WWII Pacific war buff, and a sucker for heroic movies of any type, I knew I like it, since Private Doss story is so unique and inspiring. It is a very powerful movie, but I honestly expected to love it not just really like it.
The opening needed some help, but the battle scenes were intense and very much appreciate they found clips of the real soldiers to show at the end.
My wife is (or perhaps was) inspired to watch some movies that won Oscars, and she thought (correctly) that she would be able to rope me into a war movie, so Hacksaw Ridge was first up to bat tonight.
Wow, I really did not expect to dislike the movie as much as I did. The story was reasonably fine, the direction was… pretty passable, I suppose. But oh your gods, the writing and dialog: they were absolutely horrific.
The actors gave a yeoman’s effort, but other than Vince Vaugn (who I suspect wrote his own lines), most were totally sunk under the cheese.
Worse was the ham-handed symbolism. Bloody cross? Sure. Baptism washing away the blood? Yeah, why not. Ascension into heaven? OK, let’s just throw that in for kicks.
I didn’t find the gore as as bad as some said - I thought that Saving Private Ryan was much more graphic because you actually believed that the actors were in pain and dying, unlike this movie where they were just props to be saved.
One chuckle-worthy thing: At the beginning of the movie I joked with my wife that it would be tough for Gibson to throw in a gratuitous disemboweling in a WWII movie. Yeah, well I guess I forgot that it was a movie set in Japan, so OF COURSE there was roughly a 100% chance Mel would throw in a ritual Seppuku scene.
Watched it on HBO last night. I honestly think I enjoyed the film’s first half more than once the fighting started and I’m not sure why. And as Tin pointed out, the visual symbolism was about as heavy-handed as could be made. The early portions made it clear how central his faith was to his life, his upbringing, so some of that stuff was really unnecessary.