Mel Gibson’s return to directing after a decade of personal controversy resulted in one of the more surprising war films of recent years. Hacksaw Ridge tells the true story of Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist and conscientious objector who enlisted as a combat medic during World War II, refused to carry a weapon, endured harassment and near court-martial for his beliefs, and then single-handedly rescued approximately 75 wounded men during the Battle of Okinawa. The story sounds like it should be fiction, and the fact that it’s not gives the film a moral foundation that even its weaker moments can’t undermine.
The film earned six Academy Award nominations and won two, and audience reception was overwhelmingly positive. The critical conversation has centered on whether Gibson’s approach, splitting the film into a gentle first half and a viscerally brutal second, creates a productive tension or an uncomfortable tonal collision. Most viewers land on the side of productive, though the gap between the two halves is wide enough to understand the dissent.
One Man’s Courage on a Blood-Soaked Ridge
The battle sequences on Okinawa are among the most intense ever filmed, and Gibson stages them with the same commitment to visceral physicality that defined Braveheart’s combat. The assault on the Maeda Escarpment (the titular Hacksaw Ridge) is depicted as an absolute nightmare: mud, fire, body parts, and the constant pressure of an entrenched enemy who has turned every cave and tunnel into a killing position. Gibson doesn’t look away from the cost, and the graphic violence serves a purpose beyond shock. It establishes exactly how dangerous the environment is, which makes Doss’s refusal to leave and his determination to save one more person feel genuinely heroic rather than merely admirable.
Andrew Garfield’s performance finds the right register for a character who could easily become unbearable. His Doss is sincere without being sanctimonious, stubborn without being self-righteous, and scared without ever considering abandoning his principles. Garfield plays the fear openly, which is crucial: this isn’t a man who feels no terror. He feels all of it and stays anyway. The scenes where he drags wounded soldiers to the cliff edge, lowers them to safety on a rope, and then goes back for more carry the repetitive rhythm of genuine endurance rather than dramatic escalation.
The supporting cast in the Okinawa sequences delivers strong ensemble work. Vince Vaughn, surprisingly effective as a drill sergeant, provides the comic counterpoint to the horror with a performance that suggests deeper reserves than his typical roles allow. Sam Worthington, Hugo Weaving, and Teresa Palmer all contribute solid work that supports the central performance without competing with it.
Gibson’s visual storytelling during combat demonstrates his strongest directorial instinct: the ability to make large-scale violence feel personal and specific. Individual moments within the chaos, a soldier helping a wounded friend, a Japanese attack emerging from fog, Doss praying while explosions shake the ground, register as distinct human experiences rather than undifferentiated spectacle.
The Two-Movie Problem
The first half of the film, covering Doss’s childhood, courtship, and basic training, operates in a dramatically different register than the combat sequences that follow. It’s warmer, more conventional, and occasionally tips into sentimentality that borders on television-movie territory. The romance between Doss and Dorothy Schutte follows a predictable arc, and some of the dialogue in their early scenes lacks the specificity that would make it feel lived-in rather than scripted.
The basic training section covers familiar ground: the determined outsider enduring bullying and institutional resistance until everyone comes to respect his commitment. The beats are recognizable from dozens of military films, and while the conscientious objector angle provides a genuine twist on the formula, the execution doesn’t always find ways to make the familiar feel fresh.
Hugo Weaving’s performance as Doss’s alcoholic father is the most complex work in the first half, bringing real pain to a character who could have been a simple backstory element. But the domestic scenes around him are shot and scored with a softness that feels calibrated for maximum warmth rather than emotional truth, creating a tonal distance from the unflinching honesty of the combat sequences.
The transition between the two halves is abrupt enough to feel like switching films. Some viewers find this jarring in a way that diminishes both halves. Others argue the contrast is exactly the point: that the gentle world Doss comes from is what gives his courage on the ridge its meaning.
Conviction as Weaponry
The film’s most powerful argument isn’t about pacifism as an ideology. It’s about what happens when someone maintains their principles in circumstances specifically designed to make principles irrelevant. Everyone around Doss, his fellow soldiers, his commanding officers, the enemy, operates within a framework where violence is the primary tool. His refusal to participate in that framework while still placing himself in its deadliest environments creates a form of moral disruption that the film captures with genuine power. The real Doss’s story didn’t need embellishment to be extraordinary, and the film, to its credit, plays many of its most incredible moments straight because the truth was already dramatic enough.
Should You Watch Hacksaw Ridge?
If you respond to stories of individual courage and can handle extremely graphic war violence in service of a meaningful story, Hacksaw Ridge delivers both at a high level. The combat sequences are extraordinary filmmaking, and Garfield’s central performance provides the emotional grounding that prevents the spectacle from becoming numbing. Viewers who appreciate faith-based storytelling presented without condescension will find a rare mainstream example here.
Skip it if the combination of earnest romance and ultraviolent combat in the same film creates more dissonance than resonance for you. If you find Mel Gibson’s directorial style, which tends toward maximum intensity in every register, exhausting rather than compelling, the film won’t change your mind.
The Verdict on Hacksaw Ridge
Hacksaw Ridge is a film of two halves that probably shouldn’t work together but somehow do. The earnest, occasionally hokey first act builds a foundation of conviction that makes the brutally visceral second half feel like more than just combat spectacle. Andrew Garfield’s Desmond Doss is genuinely inspiring without becoming a plaster saint, and Gibson’s direction of the battle sequences ranks among the most intense war filmmaking of the 2010s. The tonal whiplash between the romantic first hour and the ultraviolent second can be jarring, and the early scenes rely on familiar formulas. But the central idea, that one man’s refusal to carry a weapon can constitute its own form of courage, lands with real force.