So I recently was able to watch Mel Gibson's comeback Hacksaw Ridge. And I must say it was exceptional. Aside from some slight historical inaccuracies, such as the fact the ridge wasn't that tall, I found it amazing. But I would not recommend watching it anymore than once a month because it hits you like a truck. "This happened"...and the Battle scenes make you feel like you've been through he'll with these guys. I give this movie a 9/10 Your thoughts?
Afraid I can't agree. Like other Mel Gibson "historical" movies, he plays fast and very loose with facts, the battle scenes were a joke, the CGI was a joke, the special effects were a joke. The bar was raised with SPR, BoB, and the Pacific. Gibson's movie has a distinct 70's feel to it. The script has Doss as still the "coward" at Okinawa, when in fact he'd already won a bronze star for service on Guam and the Philippines. It was a great story, packaged very badly.
You might want to check out the other thread about this to read what others have said. I answered Gromit801 there. I love World War Two movies but I don't hold them up to documentary standards for accuracy. Sometimes squeezing a big story into a two hour running time necessitates cuts and compressions to the story. Sometimes budgetary limitations force film makers into cheating. Sometimes they have to settle for approximations. Even the beach in Saving Private Ryan was a fraction of the size of Omaha in France. Gibson talks very honestly about some of the cheating he had to do on Hacksaw Ridge in terms of set design. The movie was shot for 40 million dollars in Australia. It would have cost much more elsewhere. They had a set for the battlefield the size of a football field and shot close to the ground with lots of smoke to hide its small size. There is no mention of the real cliff where they shot the bottom of the ridge, nor the real height of Hacksaw. Do you have the figures? The biggest cheat in terms of the personal story had to do with Doss' relationship with his father. Gibson and the screen writer built up the role in rewrites just before and during the shoot. Gibson says that was something that "interested" him. Given his own relationship with his father, I'm sure film historians will make a lot more out of that in years to come. They will also make quite a bit out of the screen violence and how it interplays with the pacifist message of the movie. Gibson discusses how he sees a movie as a love story and how that love story plays out into the battle scenes.
A film has 90 or 120 minutes to compress years into movie length. I think Hacksaw was better than most, considering the cuts that must be made to compress the story. Even mini-series like Band of Brothers have to compress time and combine characters to make a coherent story despite the much greater length of time they have available. I bought Hacksaw last Tuesday when it showed up on the shelves in DVD. I think it's a fine film, considering the constraints of time on the director. The spirit is maintained even though the writers/editor/director must compress the many events. I liked it. I had read much on Desmond Doss before the film. I am proud to spring from the same nation that produced a man of his stature and rock-like principles. The film captures the essence of the that individual, even though the many details of that great mans story were left out.
