Venice Film Festival 2. Hacksaw Ridge, review – Heroic tale of violence and faith will revive Mel Gibson's career. Mel Gibson’s career seemed on the skids, since his arrest for drink- driving, his divorce and the accusations of anti- Semitism, not to mention the flop in which he starred as a depressed alcoholic, The Beaver of 2. He has not directed since Apocalypto of 2. Hacksaw Ridge, at Venice out of competition, will change all that. It’s like a combination of Saving Private Ryan and the film that Angelina Jolie wanted Unbroken to be but was not.
Hacksaw Ridge is at once an inspirational faith film and viscerally violent, says David Sexton. WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American. MEL Gibson may finally have found redemption with his new film Hacksaw Ridge receiving a rapturous response at the Venice Film Festival.
It is at once an inspirational faith film and viscerally violent, just like Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. And it is a true story.
Mel Gibson's Film 'Hacksaw Ridge' Based on True Story of World War II Hero Whose Only Weapon Was Prayer (Watch). Watch the Hacksaw Ridge - Official Trailer (2016). During WWII, American Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield) was an Army medic who refused to bear arms. Watch Trailer for Mel Gibson-Directed War Epic 'Hacksaw Ridge' Hollywood pariah returns with this story of real-life WWII conscientious objector.
The 2016 Venice Film Festival lineup includes the debut of Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, Ana Lily Amirpour's The Bad Batch, La La Land, Jackie, and more.
Desmond Doss, a medic at the Battle of Okinawa in 1. Medal of Honour for saving the lives of dozens of men, under heavy fire, ultimately being severely injured himself. Doss, a Seventh Day Adventist who placed himself in the hands of God, was also a conscientious objector and refused to touch a weapon — one of only three COs ever to have received this highest medal for bravery. Gibson opens the story with a vision of hell, the horrifically violent battle from which Doss himself ends up being evacuated: flames, explosions, severed body parts, screams.
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All the combat scenes in this film are shockingly intense, concentrated, unrelenting, bloody and kinetic, as wave after wave of Japanese soldiers come on, in banzai charges, seeking death (perhaps 7. Americans). Then we turn back 1.
Doss’s childhood in rural Virginia, with a father traumatised by the First World War. As a young man (from now on played stunningly well by lanky but tough Andrew Garfield), he saves a road accident victim with a tourniquet, simultaneously becoming inspired to study medicine and meeting his wife to be, a nurse (Theresa Palmer). We follow him fairly straightforwardly through training, being bullied by brutal officers (Vince Vaughn) and fellow recruits, facing a court martial — and then through to his astonishing service on the battlefield.
Mel Gibson brings a powerful true story of World War II heroism to the screen with 'Hacksaw Ridge'.
His faith is never shaken. There’s one moment mid- horror that might have come from Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, when he asks: “What is it You want of me? I can’t hear you.” But then a wounded man cries “Help me!” and Doss takes that for his answer — repeatedly praying, “Let me get one more”. Throughout, the Japanese appear completely other, in this context justifiably, perhaps.
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Sometimes the documentary clips of the real people involved, at the end of these true stories, make slightly uncomfortable viewing, deflating what we have just seen: far from it in Hacksaw Ridge. There are heroes.
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