Mel Gibson’s ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ will inspire

Andrew Garfield stars in a scene from the movie “Hacksaw Ridge“.

He has an excellent cast and a real-life hero in Desmond Doss, a U.S. army medic in the Second World War who refused to touch a gun as a conscientious objector, yet who nevertheless won the U.S. Medal of Honor for his courage under fire.

Given that the drama only cost about $40 million, that sort of bow might be enough to satisfy worldwide buyers.

Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge is a must-see film. “We’re sure it will be very successful”. But Gibson really hit paydirt as a director when he underpinned his gore fests with images of the victimhood of the Christian.

It is during this battle that Doss becomes a hero, finding a way to save countless men by persevering when most others have been forced to retreat. “There’s some divine assistance he had on top of that ridge“. But he wanted to serve his country and ended up in a combat infantry unit, tending to the wounded under some of the war’s most unsafe conditions.

The first act is built around a love story as Doss courts a young nurse he is sweet on (Teresa Palmer).

Rated MA. Hacksaw Ridge is in cinemas now. Elsewhere, there’s no such subtlety in the depiction of Desmond’s civilian life before the war, and the basic training sequences yield only one comic turn, this by Vince Vaughn as a drill sergeant.

Since the movie opens with a shot of Doss in combat, this opening movement – which plays out over nearly an hour – feels awfully unnecessary – we know he’s going to survive these trials and go to war. And maybe, just maybe, the next day he went back up on that ridge with his fellow soldiers and soccer-kicked an incoming grenade, saving even more men. I’m proudly Jewish, but I also love Lethal Weapon and Apocalypto, so evidently I’ve found a way to make my peace with Gibson.

Director Mel Gibson with actor Vince Vaughn on the set of the film, Hacksaw Ridge.

The vehicle that relays the heroic account of patriot Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) fluctuates between inspirational and cheesy. But the film never makes Doss into a dynamic character, and shows no interest in doing so, which is a major weakness. In what may be the longest and most intense war battle put to film since the D-Day sequence in Saving Private Ryan, Doss and his company push forward against an enemy that they can not see. That’s right. Mel Gibson, the gun-toting lunatic who anchored the Lethal Weapon series and a trio of Mad Max movies, has changed.

Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) is skinny and awkward, the product of a troubled Virginia family that includes an abusive father (Hugo Weaving) whose alcoholism and violent tendencies stem in part from his service during World War I.

As a young man with a natural skill for helping people and remaining calm under stress, Desmond (former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield) meets his soul mate, Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer), a handsome nurse, who falls for the charming, if also uneducated, country boy.