Impassioned patriotism and religious conviction constitute the core of “Hacksaw Ridge,” a stirring—and surpassingly violent—dramatization of the life of Desmond T. Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. As an unarmed combat medic in World War II, Cpl. Doss saved the lives of at least 75 fellow infantrymen during a horrific battle on the Japanese-held island of Okinawa. He’s played by Andrew Garfield, whose extraordinary performance turns inner torment into ardent resolve, and a desperate heroism seldom seen on screen.
The film was directed by Mel Gibson. It’s his first in that capacity in a decade, and at least two films in one, perhaps three. In a beautifully textured, extensively fictionalized preface— Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan share credit for the script—Desmond struggles, as a child growing up in small-town Virginia, with his own violent urges focused mainly on the drunken, abusive father he loathes and adores. In basic training he’s persecuted for his pacifist refusal to carry a weapon; the sequence is long, derivative and weakened by floridly literary writing for a drill sergeant played by Vince Vaughn. In subsequent battle scenes, as powerful as they are shocking, Desmond’s faith takes him only so far. He’s terrified by the danger, all but overwhelmed by the carnage, yet he carries on, lowering the wounded to safety at the foot of a steep escarpment and repeating, as a litany, “Please, Lord, help me get one more.”
Through it all there’s also a sense of Mr. Gibson struggling to confront the dynamics of his turbulent career: the penchant for graphic violence that has both distinguished and afflicted such films as “The Passion of the Christ” and “Apocalypto”; the enthrallment with martyrdom that informed “Braveheart” (one fleeting shot finds Desmond, wounded himself, suspended on a litter at the face of the ridge in what could be seen as a state of grace); and, unavoidably, given the dramatic inventions of the preface, the fraught relationship he has had, sometimes in public, with his own father. Remarkably, “Hacksaw Ridge” coalesces into a memorable whole. The movie was shot in Australia by Simon Duggan, and the mostly Australian, uniformly excellent cast includes Teresa Palmer as Desmond’s girlfriend and then wife, Dorothy; Hugo Weaving as Tom, Desmond’s father; Rachel Griffiths as his mother, Bertha, as well as Sam Worthington and Richard Roxburgh as officers in Desmond’s beleaguered rifle company.
