“Let’s see if I can write this while my head is hurting. Could be interesting.
Well here’s a spin on the classic soldier going into war story. We’ve seen Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead and Platoon and hell, even Forrest Gump where we see a solider go thru his training and then be dropped out in the battlefield. And we see our soldier overcome internal struggles and defeat outside enemies. But we haven’t seen that soldier without a gun. That’s a twist.
Andrew Garfield stars in this Mel Gibson directed war flick as Desmond Doss, a real life WWII soldier who voluntarily enlisted to fight, but refused to take human life or even touch a weapon. His aim was to save whatever life he could on the battlefield. We’ve basically got three parts of the film. First a quick view of his life and glimpse into his character. Second his struggles in training camp and the fight to be allowed to not fight. Third we see him in action.
This film surprised me by being very faith affirming for me personally. His story is one that is truly unbelievable, that he could not only survive unarmed on the battlefield but save a mind boggling amount of his fellow soldiers. Yeah, the tone of the film may have hit a bit harder on the preaching than I would have liked, but I did find the message of faith and perseverance moving. Again, it caught me off guard, since I usually roll my eyes at such things. Sometimes you just kinda need that reassurance that there is some light in the darkness of this world.
I should warn though that the battle scenes are some Private Ryan level intensity and gore. Kind of a weird juxtaposition with the tone I’d previously described, but maybe that stark contrast is why it was so effective. Anyways, it won’t replace Jacket as my favorite film in the genre, but I feel like it was worthwhile for me to have seen this film.
Hacksaw Ridge – \m/ \m/ \m/”