Hacksaw Ridge




Hacksaw Ridge is the extraordinary true story of conscientious collaborator Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) who, in Okinawa during the bloodiest battle of WWII, saved 75 men without firing or carrying a gun. He believed the war was just, but killing was nevertheless wrong; he was the only American soldier in WWII to fight on the front lines without a weapon. As an army medic, Doss single-handedly evacuated the wounded from behind enemy lines, braved fire while tending to soldiers and was wounded by a grenade and hit by snipers. He was the first conscientious objector to ever earn the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Wow.  For a very slow paced movie for the first 3/4 of the film, this movie massively slammed on the gas pedal for the last 1/4 to end up giving you a movie with a little bit of everything.  You had the love story that you liked because of the chemistry between the two actors.  You had the wearing your character on your sleeve no matter what thing with Andrew Garfield wanting to be part of the army but fighting them at the same time about not wanting to use a gun.  This felt like it was going to be pretty much the whole movie.  But then they got past that portion of the story and the actual part that took place on Hacksaw Ridge was some of the most intense war movie stuff I've ever seen.  You really felt like you were there in the battle and I'm not going to lie - I almost jumped clear out of my seat like three times during the battle portion of the movie because the intensity was dialed up to 1,000.  Normally a movie with so many pieces to it like this ends up being hurt for being all over the place.  That was not the case with this movie because it was told very well and had plenty of hooks throughout to keep you fully vested in the outcome of the story.

I would definitely recommend people check this movie out.  It was a great watch and had a little bit of everything.  Just be warned that there is a lot of war type violence/gore towards the end of the movie.