Strange and masochistic as it may be to say, I much prefer the latter Hacksaw Ridge, despite my squeamishness about blood and bone and all the other nightmare visuals the second half of the film visits upon us. Because there’s something deeply, troublingly authentic about it—it’s Mel Gibson’s mind flickering on a screen. Not quite as much as Apocalypto was. That film is, I believe, a raw, unvarnished document of Gibson’s view of the world, his closely held notion of Christianity as the only thing keeping the bloody chaos of mankind at bay. No other film will likely top that film’s arresting mix of bloodlust and existential awe. But Hacksaw Ridge is certainly another robust depiction of Gibson’s two big ideas: given the chance, humans—well, men—will rend each other apart, limb by limb; and belief in God—well, Jesus—is what animates the noblest of souls, who rise above or triumph against the original sin the unbelieving are bathed and roiling in.
The hero of Hacksaw Ridge, Desmond Doss, was certainly noble. As a medic during the brutal battle for Okinawa, he saved some 75 wounded soldiers near single-handedly, avoiding both enemy fire and Navy artillery while completely unarmed, lowering casualties down a 400-foot cliff to safety. Guided by his Seventh-Day Adventist faith, Doss did something amazing—and possibly insane. Gibson is, in many ways, the perfect director to re-create such an act, possessed of his own mad certainty. Though, Gibson’s manifests in aggressive ways, most famously in a drunken, anti-Semitic rant during an arrest 10 years ago that has haunted his career since. Thus Doss is a good, safe vessel for Gibson’s conviction. Doss is a kindhearted pacifist, but a brave and patriotic one. Around him Gibson can whip up his fiery death storms, but at the center there is someone good and un-violent, doing the inspiring work of attending to the messes that men like Mel make.