This film should be used as a model example of everything you should avoid when making an anti-war film. This is what results from someone who's clearly never read or understood François Truffaut's musings on anti-war and doesn't understand that the tone of an anti-war film, as well as its themes, both need to be anti-war for this to work. There is a clear disconnect between the excitement and high energy of the action scenes and the anti-war themes which run throughout the film. Not only is the action exciting though, but I'd also describe it as over-the-top given the abundance of slow motion and the occasional ridiculous set pieces such as using a dead soldiers body as a meat shield, destroying entire bunkers with explosives, waves of soldiers being consumed by a wall of fire, or grenades being swatted out of the air (yes, I know Doss actually did this in real life, but not in dramatic slow motion like he did in the film). Simply put, you can't pass your film off as anti-war, while simultaneously including lengthy sequences of action which feel like a blend between a superhero movie and a Zach Snyder film. Granted, virtually all the action occurs in the second half, but the first half didn't impress me much either. The building romance between Doss and Dorothy in the first half hour is hobbled by some cheesy dialogue, much of which comes off as corny pick-up lines taken straight out of a chick flick. On the plus side, the second half hour at the boot camp is probably the strongest portion of the film (or the least glaringly flawed) since the conflict between Doss and the rest of his recruits was somewhat engaging to watch (even though I wasn't in love with this sequence or anything). Also, while I generally don't pay attention to acting, I felt Garfield's soft-spoken voice fit his character really well. As a whole though, the bad far outweighed the good and, given a couple war films we got in the years after this was released like "1917" and "All Quiet on the Western Front" which actually understood anti-war, this film seems pretty unremarkable and disposable by comparison.
Review of Hacksaw Ridge
