Captain Glover: "All I saw was a skinny kid. I didn't know who you were. You've done more than any other man could've done in the service of his country. Now, I've never been more wrong about someone in my life, and I hope one day you can forgive me."The Short of It: if you are only going to watch one WWII movie make sure it isn't Hacksaw Ridge. It meets technical requirements but delivers on very little.
The Long of It: I am beginning to misunderstand why we keep going back to WWII for movies. Why? Why not stories of other American wars? -assuming you just need to make a war movie. Spanish American war? WWI? Korean War? American incursions into Mexico in the early 1900's? Why WWII?
Part of me thinks that producers and financiers are simply biased towards stories from the last age of "heroes". It may also be that this was the last war where it was agreed by most reasonable people who was good and who was bad. Yet this doesn't explain why we keep getting WWII movies. There are so many. It goes on and on and on. We keep making them. In 2017 -72 years after VE and VJ days, there appears to still be a market for WWII. We as a society will move on when we do, but my tipping point has been reached.
As to Hacksaw Ridge, I thought Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, and Hugo Weaving were miscast. Each one took some risks in their performances; drawl, trauma, and aggression, but each was ultimately unrewarding. I understand this as based on a true story, but I thought the portrayal of the conflict of conscience honestly a little boring and more than a little played out. Single-man standing up to THE MAN has been done.
I know that Mel Gibson was the director here, but I disagreed with a number of his choices in terms of shot selection and the how he chose to create dramatic tension.
1.9/5: Watch a different WWII movie if at all possible.
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