That said, I was fascinated by the story of Desmond Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, who was the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for service above and beyond the call of duty in the Second World War.
The film starts with Doss’s (Andrew Garfield) childhood and shows the event that convinced him to never bear arms and reinforces his belief of the commandment Thou shalt not kill. We see the troubled relationship between his First World War veteran father Tom (Hugo Weaving) and the rest of the family which is only exacerbated when both Doss and his brother decide to enlist into the Army. Before doing so, Doss meets and falls in love with Dorothy (Teresa Palmer) who inspires him to study medicine so that he can become an army medic.
Problems begin when Doss arrives at Fort Jackson for training and quickly isolates himself from his fellow soldiers when he refuses to handle a rifle or train on Saturdays. His commander, Sergeant Howell (Vince Vaughn) and his captain, Captain Glover (Sam Worthington) try to coerce Doss into leaving after they fail to get him discharged on psychiatric grounds. Doss continues to train and is eventually able serve his country as an army medic.
The film goes onto follow the troop at the Battle of Okinawa in the Pacific where Doss makes his name.
The battle scenes are gruesome and incredibly realistic (at least how I would imagine them to be), they are beautifully shot, choreographed and while I felt they lasted longer than necessary, they are unflinching in detail, more so than any other war film I’ve seen. Some reviewers have commented that the battle scenes are ultra violent so to show Doss’s non-violence which I think is a fair point.
Some viewers may have issues with the blood, gore and severed body parts on screen, it was even too much for me at some points and I did have to look away on several occasions.
Garfield is excellent as Doss and gives a strong, sympathetic performance of a man who cannot understand why he is being vilified for his beliefs and is worthy of his Oscar nomination. Vaughn was miscast as Sergeant Howell in my opinion, he just did not have the gravitas of a leader either in the training or battle scenes.
Verdict: A gruesome, unflinching if slightly formulaic war film, but worth seeing. Lovely touch right at the very end which is worth sticking around for. The big question is, of course, has Hollywood forgiven Mel Gibson enough to give him the Best Director award?
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