Although we have only just nudged our way into February I nominate this as a contender for Worst Film of 2017. It might even win.
This is a film of two halves. In fact the transition between one and the other is so abrupt that you could be forgiven for thinking you are watching two different films. The first half is comprised of two acts.
Act 1 sees us in Disneyland with a saccharine sweet love story told as only the Americans can do with a plethora of sickly smiles, gleaming perfect white teeth, pretty pastel colours and every damn country boy and country girl cliché in the teenage book of dreamy heart fluttering romance.
Act 2 Army training camp. New wet behind the ears recruits and a sergeant major set on making men of them. Familiar territory. You know the score: the recruits will be wheeled out fully formed and ready labelled from the casting department.. The tough one. The farmer boy one. The handsome one. The oddly short one. The goofy one. And the evil one who from the off sets out to make our hero's life a misery. And the signpost also tells you that an hour down the line in this film they will be best buddies. The sergeant major now does what all sergeant majors do in every boot camp film you have ever seen he yells and screams bawls and bellows just half an inch from the face of every recruit. Of course he saves the best of his decibels for our hapless hero.
Turns out our hero doesn't want to carry a rifle he just wants to be a medic. So instead of congratulating him on this noble and potentially useful choice of army career he gets bawled out and they treat him like something the sergeant major scraped of the bottom of his size twelve boots.
But with the help of his demented dad and his pretty and expertly permed smiling gal our hero escapes a court martial. The gal gives her guy a bible. We saw that coming.
Part Two: Our hero and his buddies are gathered at the foot of a cliff. The only way up to Hacksaw Ridge is via a single wide rope ladder. Atop the ridge are approximately a quarter of a million Japanese soldiers. All is quiet. And you can't help wondering why those evil Nips (their term, not mine) haven't simply chopped down the rope ladder or why they are not massed along the top lobbing mortars and grenades down on the troops below.
But we have been assured at the start of this epic masterpiece that we are watching a true story so we have to accept that this is how it happened. But that rope ladder still bothers me.
However...the troops clamber up the ladder and they are on top of the cliff – and all hell breaks loose after a bombardment from some offshore guns.
Now let me state here that I have read about the battles against the Japanese for control of the Pacific islands and am fully aware of the terrible fighting that ensued. The Japanese fought with suicidal recklessness not seen since Medieval times. But in this film that fighting is presented in such an orgiastic way with almost pornographic detail of spilled entrails, pools of glistening blood, severed limbs, decapitated heads, mangled half torsos and spaghetti shredded legs that the suspicion is that the director and writers have intentionally set out to out-gore every war film that has gone before. Every time a soldier looks up a bullet neatly penetrates his helmet and skull. Every time there is an explosion three men are catapulted into the air by some clever hidden device. And then there is more blood and guts and half- men screaming for their moms.
The tidal wave of Japs overwhelms the US soldiers and miraculously they all escape down the one rope ladder. It's not shown how they get their wounded down there but hey ho... What of our hero...? Well he is still up top – now alone with the dead and wounded that have been left behind. A few Japs take some pot shots at him but then they all disappear back to their tunnels for some chow.
Leaving our hero free to drag the wounded to the cliff edge. This is an heroic task in itself but now he has to get them to safety. He proceeds to lower them down the two hundred feet sheer cliff face. Actually there are only two blokes down there, smoking and chewing the fat. But they do a sterling job sending the wounded back to camp. Oddly no-one thinks to send a soldier or two – or twenty – up the trusty rope ladder to help our hero. They just hang around below waiting for the next dangling hospital candidate.
And so it goes on. When our exhausted hero does eventually fling himself down with a rope there just happens to be scores of his buddies waiting for him. Shame they didn't have the balls to go up and help him. But they all line up cinematically so that our hero can be led away.
At the risk of upsetting the 'Special Relationship' we have with our pilgrim brothers and sisters on the other side of the pond – and I know my fellow countrymen will understand this – Hacksaw Ridge is just too American. A much better script and a British director would have delivered a subtle, more sympathetic film with less of your usual jingoism and more of the real drama and nuances of war.
This is a true story. A story of towering heroism. Real men fighting real battles. But in this mess of a film that story has been reduced to nothing more than a comic book reality. And all concerned deserved better than that.
This is a film of two halves. In fact the transition between one and the other is so abrupt that you could be forgiven for thinking you are watching two different films. The first half is comprised of two acts.
Act 1 sees us in Disneyland with a saccharine sweet love story told as only the Americans can do with a plethora of sickly smiles, gleaming perfect white teeth, pretty pastel colours and every damn country boy and country girl cliché in the teenage book of dreamy heart fluttering romance.
Act 2 Army training camp. New wet behind the ears recruits and a sergeant major set on making men of them. Familiar territory. You know the score: the recruits will be wheeled out fully formed and ready labelled from the casting department.. The tough one. The farmer boy one. The handsome one. The oddly short one. The goofy one. And the evil one who from the off sets out to make our hero's life a misery. And the signpost also tells you that an hour down the line in this film they will be best buddies. The sergeant major now does what all sergeant majors do in every boot camp film you have ever seen he yells and screams bawls and bellows just half an inch from the face of every recruit. Of course he saves the best of his decibels for our hapless hero.
Turns out our hero doesn't want to carry a rifle he just wants to be a medic. So instead of congratulating him on this noble and potentially useful choice of army career he gets bawled out and they treat him like something the sergeant major scraped of the bottom of his size twelve boots.
But with the help of his demented dad and his pretty and expertly permed smiling gal our hero escapes a court martial. The gal gives her guy a bible. We saw that coming.
Part Two: Our hero and his buddies are gathered at the foot of a cliff. The only way up to Hacksaw Ridge is via a single wide rope ladder. Atop the ridge are approximately a quarter of a million Japanese soldiers. All is quiet. And you can't help wondering why those evil Nips (their term, not mine) haven't simply chopped down the rope ladder or why they are not massed along the top lobbing mortars and grenades down on the troops below.
But we have been assured at the start of this epic masterpiece that we are watching a true story so we have to accept that this is how it happened. But that rope ladder still bothers me.
However...the troops clamber up the ladder and they are on top of the cliff – and all hell breaks loose after a bombardment from some offshore guns.
Now let me state here that I have read about the battles against the Japanese for control of the Pacific islands and am fully aware of the terrible fighting that ensued. The Japanese fought with suicidal recklessness not seen since Medieval times. But in this film that fighting is presented in such an orgiastic way with almost pornographic detail of spilled entrails, pools of glistening blood, severed limbs, decapitated heads, mangled half torsos and spaghetti shredded legs that the suspicion is that the director and writers have intentionally set out to out-gore every war film that has gone before. Every time a soldier looks up a bullet neatly penetrates his helmet and skull. Every time there is an explosion three men are catapulted into the air by some clever hidden device. And then there is more blood and guts and half- men screaming for their moms.
The tidal wave of Japs overwhelms the US soldiers and miraculously they all escape down the one rope ladder. It's not shown how they get their wounded down there but hey ho... What of our hero...? Well he is still up top – now alone with the dead and wounded that have been left behind. A few Japs take some pot shots at him but then they all disappear back to their tunnels for some chow.
Leaving our hero free to drag the wounded to the cliff edge. This is an heroic task in itself but now he has to get them to safety. He proceeds to lower them down the two hundred feet sheer cliff face. Actually there are only two blokes down there, smoking and chewing the fat. But they do a sterling job sending the wounded back to camp. Oddly no-one thinks to send a soldier or two – or twenty – up the trusty rope ladder to help our hero. They just hang around below waiting for the next dangling hospital candidate.
And so it goes on. When our exhausted hero does eventually fling himself down with a rope there just happens to be scores of his buddies waiting for him. Shame they didn't have the balls to go up and help him. But they all line up cinematically so that our hero can be led away.
At the risk of upsetting the 'Special Relationship' we have with our pilgrim brothers and sisters on the other side of the pond – and I know my fellow countrymen will understand this – Hacksaw Ridge is just too American. A much better script and a British director would have delivered a subtle, more sympathetic film with less of your usual jingoism and more of the real drama and nuances of war.
This is a true story. A story of towering heroism. Real men fighting real battles. But in this mess of a film that story has been reduced to nothing more than a comic book reality. And all concerned deserved better than that.