Hacksaw Ridge - Liked It

Stars: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Terese Palmer
Run Time: 2 hours, 19 minutes

​We have another movie based on true events for the second to last Oscar nominee this month. Hacksaw Ridge is about a young man from Virginia who enlists in the Army even though he has a strong relationship with God and the will to never kill, even in war. Meeting the woman of his dreams just before, Dorothy (played by Teresa Palmer), Desmond (Andrew Garfield) still has the urge  to join the Army to do something to help out his country. So, right after asking her to marry him, he goes off to training camp where he begins to learn the ins and out of what it takes to be in war. He does great, up until it is time to start learning how to shoot. Desmond refuses to touch the rifle. Because of this, controversy is started among the barracks and with the local Army officials. Not backing down from his faith and his belief, he has to go court and plead he case (for disobeying a direct order).
 
Since this is a true story and I’m sure most of you know the overall reasoning behind the movie, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume you know what happens next. Desmond is granted permission to go to war without a rifle to protect himself in war. Almost immediately his team is tasked with taking Hacksaw Ridge against the Japanese. Many of his team get wounded and, being the medic, his goal is to save as many as possible. The Army started an assault, just as the rest had fallen back. Desmond stays behind to pull as many survivors out of the rubble as he can. It’s when the assault stops that the movie gets intense. He no longer has cover from the Japanese, but he still keeps going and ends up being the hero of the battle.  

• I liked the movie in general. The story was inspiring and the action packed scenes in the end were exciting and intense. I felt myself needing him to survive to the end of the movie.
• I hated the scene with the Japanese man and the sword. Honestly I didn’t understand the purpose. Perhaps it has something to do with the ending of the war? I have never been good with history.
• I liked the scene with Desmond and the hurt Japanese man, and thought it was wonderful that he tried to save them.
• I liked Vince Vaughn in his role. Though I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to be funny, I still think he was.
• I liked when Desmond’s father helped him out regardless of how he felt about his son in the war.
• I hated that we never saw Hal (Desmond’s brother) again in the movie after he went off to war. I wondered about him the entire time.

Overall, this movie was great. The beginning of the movie while Desmond as a child set it up very nicely as to the reasoning behind his extreme faith later in life, as well as the scenes where he saved that boy from under the car and his dream of being a doctor. Learning what drives him really helped the story progress at a nice and understanding pace to the viewer. The time he spent at training camp allowed for great character development, and even though the people he was training with didn’t see, it was evident that he was going to be both a devout Christian and someone who would save their lives. The war scenes were my favorite, which I’m sure most of you could have gathered. Each time Desmond pulled another man out of the wreckage it was awesome, and he kept coming back to more. 

I didn't even notice that this movie was so long! I even liked it in the end when real footage from the real people being interviewed about that day were shown, instead of only having stuff to read as to what happened next in Desmond's life. I would have liked to see more with Desmond and Dorothy in the end of the movie and it wasn’t extremely evident if he survived the bomb or not. I’m going to give this movie a “Liked It” and definitely recommend it to our viewers if you’re looking for a good action packed film to watch.