CHURCHILL vs CHURCHILL

Back in 2005, just in time for Oscar consideration, the film Capote was released.  It featured Philip Seymour Hoffman as the troubled, effete, prima-donna, Truman Capote, struggling with his inner demons as he endeavoured to write his book 'In Cold Blood'.  About nine months later, a film called Infamous was released. It featured Toby Jones as the troubled, effete, prima-donna, Truman Capote, struggling with his inner demons as he endeavoured to write his book 'In Cold Blood'.

Hoffmann won the Oscar for his performance, Jones did not.

Then, in 2012, just in time for Oscar consideration, the film Hitchcock was released.  It featured Anthony Hopkins as the troubled, anxious film-director Alfred Hitchcock as he struggled to complete his film 'Psycho'.  About a month before this, a film called The Girl had been released.  It featured Toby Jones as the cold, controlling film director Alfred Hitchcock as he struggled to complete his film 'The Birds'.

Jones was nominated for a hatful of awards.  Hopkins was not.

So that's the real Hitch, the real Toby Jones and the real Anthony Hopkins.  I wonder if it's a real crow?

It happens.  Sometimes an idea dawns on several people at once and turns into two very similar films being made at the same time.

Remember Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down (both 2013)?

Or the aliens-invade-LA films Skyline and Battle: LA (the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 respectively)?

Or Deep Impact and Armageddon (both 1998)?

Or the disastrous movie Volcano and the even worse Dante's Peak (both 1997)?

Well, it's still happening.  Last year saw the story of the assassination of Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich dramatised in the film Anthropoid (featuring, as it happens, Toby Jones in a supporting role).  This year will see the release of HHhH (based on the novel of the same name) which dramatises the assassination of Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich.

And now, staying with World War Two, we have two biopics of Winston Churchill.  And which one is Toby Jones in?  Hah - neither!

Let's be honest, playing Churchill is probably the role that, outside of Sherlock Holmes and King Lear, actors of a certain age want to have a crack at.  Michael Gambon gave us his Churchill last year, in TV's Churchill's Secret, as did John Lithgow in The Crown.  Timothy Spall gave us his Churchill in The King's Speech in 2010.  Robert Hardy virtually made a living as Churchill in the 80s and 90s.  But, let's face it, we all prefer Ian McNiece's rendition in Doctor Who in 2010.  That was Churchill and the Daleks, for goodness sake!

But now we have two new contenders.  We have Brian Cox as the titular Churchill.  That had a brief run at the cinema last month.  You might still be able to find it, if you have decent cinemas in your area.  Interest in it may be renewed since, just this week, we have seen the launch of the trailer for Darkest Hour, which is (based purely on the trailer) already getting rumblings about an Oscar for its Churchill - one Gary Oldman.

Let's have a look at the form, shall we ... First out of the gate was Brian Cox:

And the young pretender ... Gary Oldman:

Well, I like Brian Cox.  But I also like Gary Oldman.  But who's best?

There's only one way to be sure!

 

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

Well, it was a struggle, but I managed to find a poster for this film, that didn't look like it was put together by the Graphic Designer's 12 year old kid.

            Spider-Man: Homecoming is so called, not because of the Homecoming Dance that features briefly in it; nor is it so-called because the story features a major “there’s no place like home” revelation.  It is called Homecoming as a knowing meta-narrative nod to the audience, that the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man has returned to the Marvel fold after decades in the wilderness.

            Spider-Man is their Mickey Mouse, he’s their Superman; he’s the flag-bearer for their entire business and, anachronistically, because of difficult financial decisions made decades ago; they haven’t been able to use him.  But now they can.  This was the chance for Kevin Feige to roll up his sleeves and say “Right, this is how you’re supposed to do a Spidey movie!”

            What’s at stake, then, is whether Marvel can weave its magic over its own characters, when they have been damaged whilst on loan.  Fox keeps managing to pull the X-Men’s asses out of the fire.  For every desperately poor Wolverine (2009), there’s a surprisingly rich First Class (2011), for every Apocalypse (2016), there’s a Logan (2017).  And then, of course, there’s Deadpool!  But The Fantastic Four, bless them, they have enjoyed no such success; each of Fox’s FF films has dug a deeper hole in the affections of the audience than the one before it.  But, despite that, it has become abundantly clear that Fox will never return them to the fold.  So, Marvel is moving on without them.  Ramping up The Inhumans as replacements for the X-Men; going cosmic without the need for the Negative Zone and Galactus.

            But Spider-Man is different.  Apparently, so the story goes, Raimi wanted to continue his old-school approach to Spidey by having his third film feature The Vulture.  Along with Doc Ock and Green Goblin, he was one of comic-book Spidey’s longest serving adversaries (first appearing in issue 2), and one that the fans were desperate to see brought to the screen.  However, this decision was overruled and, instead, Sony decided to go with Venom - a character from a very different period in Spidey’s history, with a very different fan-base.  Well, we all know how Spider-Man 3 (2007) worked out.  But that was nothing to the delights which lay in store when the franchise went ‘Amazing’.  I gave a fair and balanced viewing of that debacle, here.

            So, Sony realised that its (galactically stupid) decisions were losing it profit.  Years of back-room shenanigans ensued and, finally, they struck a deal with Marvel to return the character, at least in part, to the MCU (that’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, in case you haven’t been keeping up with your Three Letter Acronyms).  This complicated process has led to no fewer than twelve credited producers and six credited writers.

            So, what we have here is what’s now referred to as a soft re-boot.  We don’t get Uncle Ben again, we don’t get the spider bite (although it is mentioned), we don’t get the Spider Sense, or J. Jonah Jameson; but we do get Peter back at school, navigating the corridor politics of bullies and girls and tests.  We also get The Vulture.  Point made, Kevin; point made!

The 'If This Be My Destiny' story (it's not actually called The Final Chapter) is one of the most famous episodes from the early Lee/Ditko comics, and is now brought to the screen, as are many other careful references to the source material.

            The film heaves with smart acknowledgements to the original 60s comics; for those who are familiar enough to spot them.  It still irks, mind you, that the creators behind a lot of these moments, aren’t credited among those six writers.  Lee and Ditko are, but the others, John Romita, Don Heck, Brian Michael Bendis and the rest, they have to wait for a ‘based on characters created by’ acknowledgement at the very end of the credits.  ... After Robert Downey Jr’s Hair Consultant.  But then, I suppose they can’t all have cameos.

            Like the original Lee/Ditko comics, this is as much a High School coming-of-age story as it is a superhero adventure.  Yes, Tom Holland is 21 playing 15, but he actually gets away with it.  Unlike Andrew Garfield’s turn in ‘Amazing’, I can actually buy Holland as a kid.  Not too nerdy (not as socially inept as Tobey Maguire’s version), but not obviously too fit, too tall and too cool for school (as Garfield was).

            Holland’s Spider-Man is clumsy and confused and over-excited and sometimes scared.  He is, in other words, a teenager!  That works for the demographics of the Marvel movie audience, but it was also key to the character from day one.  As a comic-reading friend of mine once noted ruefully, back in the 90s: I remember a time when Peter Parker was older than me.  But the key to him is that he’s a kid, a kid given extraordinary powers that shift his entire world.  And he isn’t a billionaire or a god or a world-renowned scientist, he’s a kid.  How does a kid deal with the powers of a superhero?  That has always been the dilemma at the heart of the Spider-Man story, that’s the story that this generation of kids deserve to experience. 

            These early scenes fairly echo with the footsteps of John Hughes.  I’m grateful they resisted the temptation to put Don’t You Forget About Me on the soundtrack during the detention scene, and it is forgivable that they give in, briefly, to a Ferris Bueller gag.  But it isn’t all levity.  There is one moment in the movie, above all others, when Peter is alone and in peril and he panics.  He screams for help and, right there, we are forced to confront the fact that, however cocky and sophisticated and knowing and cynical our kids are ... They’re still just kids.

High-School Avengers Assemble:  Iron Man (top), Scarlett Witch (left), Bruce Banner (middle), Black Widow (seated), Captain America (right)

           This also informs Peter’s desperation to please Tony Stark.  He’s subconsciously looking for a father figure.  Shame he picked a globe-trotting billionaire narcissist egomaniac who has serious daddy issues of his own.

            For me, the characters and the small moments are much more impressive than the big set-pieces.  The ferry scene, which features so predominantly in the trailer, feels like a mash-up of the bridge scene in Spider-Man 1 (2002), the train scene in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and, inevitably, the ferry scene in The Dark Knight (2008).  There’s a similar big moment in Washington that also, for me, felt cluttered and confused and overly-familiar. 

            A part of this clutter must be put down to Spidey talking constantly to the AI of his suit.  Essentially, Stark has engineered the Spider Suit as a more streamlined version of his own Iron Man suit, complete with chatty computer interface.  This gives Spidey lots of fun toys to play with, some of which are unnecessary, some of which are just plain dumb; but the main thing is, it gives him someone to talk to.  In the comics, Spidey never shuts up.  He’s trading witty one-liners with whoever he’s fighting (something we’ve already seen in his Civil War fight with Falcon) but also, when he’s alone, he thinks things through or talks to himself.  That’s difficult to do well in a film.  Having an on-board AI gives him someone to talk to which, therefore, gives him a platform to externalise all that teenage angst.

Pfft.  And Falcon thinks his wings are all that.

            At the other end of sci-fi tech scale, we have Michael Keaton’s Toomes.  He starts the film in a flashback, working as a contractor clearing up the alien tech and devastation after the New York fight from the Avengers movie.  He’s a working stiff who gets stiffed by the government, in the form of the all-new Department of Damage Control (how’s that for an oxymoron).  This pushes his business over the edge financially.  So, what’s he going to do?  Well, he has a pile of unrecycled Chitauri tech and an enthusiastic tinkerer on staff; so time to make like Tony Stark and build some weapons.

            His weapons manufacture is all very low tech, though, his  gadgets seem to be being assembled in, essentially, a garage.  He has limited aspirations for his toys; but that’s deliberate, because he wants to stay under the radar.  As he says - when the film proper starts - he’s been doing what he’s doing for eight years, without ever attracting the attention of the FBI or SHIELD or The Avengers.  He’s strictly small-fry.  But, if you push the little guy the wrong way, he can develop big ideas.  This is what took the honest business man and turned him into the gun-runner.  As Spider-Man repeatedly foils his plans, the gun-runner decides to step up a gear ... After repeatedly refusing the call to get properly nefarious, he finally gives in and does what any business man would do ... He steals from the opposition.

Psst ... A little bird told me you'll be playing a different kind of birdman ...

            The key to Toomes - and, no doubt, what attracted a heavy-hitter like Keaton - is that he speaks a lot of sense.  He has been treated badly by a high-handed military-industrial complex.  Tony Stark was a gun-runner before he found he could make more money elsewhere.  The American Dream was built on the belief that it is acceptable to do anything to support your family.  Toomes isn’t a grand-standing psychopath who wants to take over the world, he just wants to put his kids through college.

            There is an electrifying scene where Keaton locks eyes with Peter and calmly explains what he’ll do to stay in business.  No shouting, no histrionics, just one guy smiling while he threatens another.  That’s why you hire someone as complex as Michael Keaton, to get that intensity from a close-up shot. 

            Back in the ’80s, when he was best known for his comedies, there was always a dark edge to Keaton.  Ron Howard saw it first, when he cast him in Night Shift (1982), Tim Burton saw it when he made him Beetlejuice (1988), and John Schlesinger saw it when he cast him as the malignancy at the heart of Pacific Heights (1990).  There was always a recklessness in Keaton’s eyes which made him potentially dangerous.  Guess what:  It’s still there.  

            Of course, Toomes is a villain so, however reasonable his argument, however justifiable his cause, the fact that he is prepared to ignore morality and kill people for it, somewhat undermines his point.

            And Spidey is a hero so, no-matter that no-one believes in him, no-matter that he’s alone and out-classed and out-gunned; he’s still going to try and protect the little guy.  Cos that’s what Spidey always was, back in the early 70s, when four-year-old me learned to read on black-and-white reprints of John Romita and Ross Andru era Spidey .... He was always the little guy, always misunderstood, always struggling to balance the demands of real-life, relationships, work and super-heroing.

This isn't Tony Stark's happy face. Maybe he's just realised how few scenes he's in.

            The early scenes of Spidey keeping himself busy whilst waiting for ‘the call’ from The Avengers, are very reminiscent of Kick-Ass (2010) but then, they would be; that was Mark Millar’s take on an updated Spider-Man ... This is Marvel’s take on the same thing; it’s no surprise there are similarities.

            The film relies too heavily on the Toomes’ henchmen being as ham-fisted as Spidey, initially, is.  Otherwise, he’d’ve been killed pretty much at the start, and then where’s your movie?  But, because Holland is so likeable, and so endearingly clumsy, you go along with the film when it wanders into cliché or the odd page of lazy writing. 

            However, there’s one particular plot-twist that is just way too convenient, and stretches the bounds of credibility too far.  Nothing like the catalogue of contrivances in the last two Spidey films, though, so don’t worry.  It’s just that this film goes so far in making Peter human and fallible, and the world he inhabits, so credible, and the friends he spends time with, so nuanced and detailed and likeable ... That they nearly throw it all away with one plot contrivance too many.

            But - thanks to some classy writing and some brilliant acting from Michael Keaton - they bring it back from the edge in the nick of time.

It's just one of those boy-meets-suit, boy-loses-suit, boy-gets-suit-back-again kinda films

            So, this film isn’t spectacular.  It certainly isn’t amazing.  It is, however, friendly; and it’s great fun to finally see Spidey in Marvel’s neighbourhood.

Written by: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers & Uncle Tom Cobbly
Directed by: Jon Watts
Cert: 12A
Dur: 133 mins

BABY DRIVER

            Edgar Wright has reinvented the Film Noir for the 21^st century. 

            Wright, as you may know, arrived in movies via comedy TV, working with Matt Lucas and David Walliams (looooong before they achieved National Treasure Status) and, of course, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on Spaced (1999 - 2001).  That led to Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), wherein Wright et al took familiar movie signifiers into their own sandpit and played with them their way.  This produced delightful, surprising and illuminating films.

            Guess what:  it still does.

            Here, Wright plays fast and loose with the generic signifiers of the heist movie, the gangster movie and, yes, the noir.  He’s not the first person to do this, of course:  I still remember sitting in a cinema back in 1992, watching an unheard-of film by an unknown film-maker, playing one of the unregarded afternoon slots in the Birmingham Film Festival.  The movie began with a group of villains in a diner arguing about Madonna songs and tipping waitresses.  It was, of course, Reservoir Dogs, and it was a very, very different take on the crime movie.

            No, I’m not saying this film is like that film.  Although Baby Driver does share many traits with Res Dogs, not least its loquacious bad-guys and eclectic use of music; what I’m saying is that re-inventing (or ‘re-imagining’ as I believe the managementbots like to term it these days) the heist move is a noble endeavour which has engendered great results in the past.

Let's go to work.

            It also doesn’t hurt Baby Driver’s chances that the last couple of decades has seen the getaway driver and the car-stunt elevated to previous unimagined heights of fame thanks, on the one hand, to the Transporter series (2002, 2005 & 2008) and the Fast and Furious series (2001 - date), but also because of the art-house fave, Drive (2011).

            Indeed, rather like that Ryan Gosling film, Baby Driver features a superhumanly able driver who works for villains out of necessity rather than choice; but he is trying to get out, because he’s got a girl he wants to go straight for.  It’s a familiar trope - best summed-up in Michael Corleone’s “Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in” from Godfather III (1990) - but, then, this film is all about presenting us with things we recognise in new and unusual ways.      

            Baby-faced Ansel Elgort plays the titular chauffer, who has a breezy, cheery demeanour.  Like a lot of people, he has his ear buds in permanently and lives his life to the beat of his music.  For example, he essentially dances down the street to fetch coffee in the film’s opening moments.

           The oft-maligned (and overdue for a re-appraisal) Hudson Hawk (1991) introduced the delightful notion of orchestrating a heist to a song.  Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello split up but keep singing, and that way, they stay synchronised.  They could just wear a watch but, hey, where’s the fun in that?  

           See?  It's ace!  Anyway, Baby uses the same methodology when he drives.  It’s all about rhythm and gear changes, just like the song ‘Bellbottoms’, which underscores the opening car chase.  During this scene and in all the scenes of violence, the action is synchronised to the beat of the music.

            This is the way they used to edit pop videos back in the 1980s and editing found footage to the tempo of a favourite piece of music is an established way to teach video editing to Media Studies students.  I’m sure Wright will have done it many times in his youth; just like he’ll have fooled around with mix-tapes.

            Baby, likewise, makes mix-tapes.  And I do mean ‘tapes’.  All of his audio kit is out-dated, from the cassettes he records wild track audio onto, to the iPod he has plugged into his ears.  And this retro kit is the first hint that there is something more substantial going on below the stylish surface of this film.

            It almost doesn’t need saying that an Edgar Wright film is very clever, that initially comes through in the visuals.  During that scene when he gets the coffee, I’m sure there are loads of easter eggs in the graffiti and in the behaviour/identity of the passers-by, which the pause button will reveal when the film hits home video.

"Can we get a move on, Ed?  I gotta get back to Marvel.  You know what it's like working for those guys, right?  Right?  Ed?"

            The film also introduces us to some colourful bad-guys.  First off, we have The Crew.  This, like a 70s rock-band, has a floating roster of people who join and leave and rejoin later.  At first, it seems that Jon (The Punisher) Bernthal is going to be the problem for Baby, but this proves to be a nice piece of misdirection on Wright’s part.  Extra colour is provided for the crew by The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Flea, Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and Kanye West’s Jamie Foxx. 

        These are all given loads of character traits and ticks to work with - particularly, I notice, throat tattoos - as villains who are variously enigmatic, menacing, manipulative and/or just plain mad.  As you might expect, Hamm particularly shines as Buddy (possibly not his real name), while Foxx gives a fantastic turn as Bats (presumably short for Batshitcrazy.)  You know you’ve got an interesting script, when Oscar-winning leading actors are willing to take supporting roles in it! 

Don't trust him, Baby, he's the fucking President

          The man with the plan is Doc - played effortlessly by Kevin Spacey.  He admires Baby’s skill, even has a soft-spot for the kid.  But then, they have something in common ... They both feel that being a bad-guy doesn’t mean one can’t be civil.  They also value their family and their past.  With Baby, this is symbolised in the machines he listens to music on - machines that he associates with his dead mother (rather like Peter Quill and his Walkman); with Doc this is symbolised by the toy cars he uses to rehearse his heists, toys which he carefully puts away in a box afterwards.

            There are a couple of tasteful scars on Baby’s baby face, which are subtle indications of a violent and dramatic past which, in-turn, foreshadows the violence to come.  About half-way through, the film turns on a dime, and we realise that the playful form of the film disguises a dark and troubling content; the strained civility and ritualised normality of the first half falls away, and real threat enters Baby’s life, accompanied by sudden and extreme violence.

            We have learned to care about him and therefore, when the things he cares about are threatened, we take it personal too.

            There comes a point when things go catastrophically wrong for Baby, and he seems to forget all of his driving skills.  That seemed oddly convenient - insofar as the script needed him to get into trouble and the only way to do it, was for him to forget all the natural, effortless abilities he’d demonstrated in the film’s first heist; which could have got him out of that trouble, if the plot hadn’t needed him to be in it.

It is never made clear whether or not Baby tips the waitress.  As we know, waitressing is the number one occupation for female non-college graduates in America.

            That trouble, of course, comes in the form of his girlie, Deborah, who is neither a femme fatale, nor is she a hard-bitten moll; she’s kinda passive, in fact.  Very much a passenger in Baby’s vehicle.  That said, the scenes of them getting to know each other are delightful, and Lily James needs to portray Deborah as being especially vulnerable if the inevitable threat to her is to feel credible.

            I’ve called it Film Noir for the 21^st century because, like a lot of Film Noir, the main character is a basically descent bloke who finds himself trapped in a spiral of violence, drawn into a criminal world that exists alongside the real world.  I’ve always found a vein of romanticism in Noir - sometimes bordering on the delusional - and that is definitely here in the way that Baby holds on to the belief that he can keep the two sides of his life separate, when we, the viewer, know that the best anti-lock brakes in the world won’t stop the one story crashing into the other.

            So, what we have a mash-up (as the young people say) of old Hollywood tropes and new-media post-post-modern film-making techniques, to create a film which feels both very traditional and very fresh.

Playing with model cars is just for babies, right?

            No, the visuals are not as extreme and the style as overpowering as they were in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) - that’s a good thing - the dialogue doesn’t quite sparkle like Tarantino’s or Scorsese’s does - but the music ... That’s a helluva thing!  Both Tarantino and Scorsese are geniuses with threading music through their crime movies.  Mr. Wright is now right up there with them!

            James Gunn just got nudged into second place for Soundtrack Album of 2017.  I’m listening to the Baby Driver soundtrack now as I type this - find it here, on Spotify.

            I’ve long maintained that there isn’t enough Hocus Pocus by Focus in the world ... But following it with Radar Love by Golden Earring was a masterstroke.  So, Wright might not have Tarantino’s ear for dialogue, but he does have his ear for music and, if anything, he makes better use of it.  And, let’s face it, he has form using Queen music to brilliant effect!

            One other difference between this film and Tarantino - I actually found myself caring for the good-guys in this film, they became more than just ciphers (which Tarantino can be guilty of) and the bad-guys weren’t so terrifyingly brutal that you feel the need to look the other way - as happened from time to time in Kill Bill (2003, 2004) for example.

            Baby Driver is good-humoured and good-natured.  It’s fun from neutral to fifth, but that doesn’t cut into the tension of the dramatic scenes; it just means that, as a viewer, I was more invested in the adventure and, therefore, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

Written & Directed by Edgar Wright.

Dur: 113 mins

Cert: 15

HACKSAW RIDGE

            I missed Hacksaw Ridge at the pictures.  Maybe I was demotivated by the Oscar buzz.  Cos films that win Oscars tend to be safe and pensioner-friendly, don’t they?  Also, it’s a soppy story about a religious nut at war, directed by another religious nut.  Certainly one to avoid, right?  Wrong.  Oh so very wrong.  Now the film is out on disc and download: Watch it!

            The first time I saw Hacksaw Ridge, I had a vague sense of déjà vu.  The dust and the grit of the battlefield, the sudden explosive and unrelenting violence, the bond between the men and the deep, abiding faith underpinning it all ... It all rang a distant bell.

            It reminded me of the Mel Gibson starrer, We Were Soldiers (2002).  This was written and directed by Randall Wallace, who had written the Oscar-nominated film Braveheart for Mel Gibson seven years earlier.

The differences between Hacksaw and We Were Soldiers are overt and immeditately obvious.  The similarities are more subtle and under the skin.

            Both films concern themselves with the gritty brutality of war (different wars, but photographed in very similar ways), how this tests decent men, and the effect it all has on their families.  In Hacksaw, the focus is on Doss’ dad (Hugo Weaving), still struggling with survivor guilt twenty years after the First war, and terrified of seeing his sons go the way all of his friends went: straight into an early grave.  In We Were Soldiers, it’s the wives we spend time with, waiting in fear for the telegrams, led by a stoical Madeleine Stowe.

            But the similarities are not just thematic; they are woven throughout the fabric of Hacksaw Ridge.  Like the earlier film, when it shows the inscrutable Oriental enemy at all, it shows them travelling by tunnel, and sketches in the suggestion that they, too, are brave and honourable men, fighting for a cause they hold dear. 

            In the heat of battle, we get blood splashing the camera, in both films; we get God’s eye views of the wounded, we get slow-motion explosions filling the air with dirt and fire.  Repeatedly, the person speaking disappears in a spray of red in mid sentence, by a head shot that snuffs out their life before the sound of the shot is heard.  

This is the end.  The titular Hacksaw Ridge, where soldiers have to climb a ladder to reach Hell.

            There is an emphasis on excruciating wounds, particularly leg gore, and on men burning, as well as on the importance of evacuating the wounded.  We get men carried over shoulders. 

            There’s more:  We get a steely drill sergeant (Sam Elliot in Soldiers, Vince Vaughn in Hacksaw), and a decent C.O. (Gibson himself in Soldiers, Sam Worthington in Hacksaw). 

            In We Were Soldiers, the journalist, Joe Galloway, (played by Barry Pepper, fresh from his turn in 1999’s Saving Private Ryan) is a non-combatant who doesn’t know how to use a gun.  He co-wrote the book of what occurred in the Ia Drang Valley, in this true story.   

            In Hacksaw, of course, Andrew Garfield plays Desmond Doss, a medic who won’t use a gun, and who, eventually, told what occurred on that ridge, in this true story.

The real Desmond Doss.

            But Hacksaw Ridge’s lack of originality doesn’t hinder it one iota.  I know literally no-one who doesn’t love the film.  It’s also true that, in almost every way, Hacksaw is the superior movie.  Granted, there is nothing here the equal of the scenes in Soldiers where Stowe takes the telegrams to her neighbours, one by one, to tell them their husbands are dead.  But, otherwise, Hacksaw is all heart, carried by Garfield’s simply, gritty determination and his puppy-dog eyes.

            One key difference that’s worth mentioning, is with the way the two films depict the Sarge.  Where Vaughn brings a real human warmth to Hacksaw, in a role that could easily have turned into a parody of Full Metal Jacket’s R. Lee Ermey (1987), Sam Elliott, in Soldiers, is largely thrown away in his rendition of the same role, because his natural humour and charm are missing, leaving inflexible, humourless efficiency.  There’s always something off in a film where Sam Elliott doesn’t have that wonderfully lush ’tache.

You keep 'em peeled for that facial adornment, boy.  It's gone AWOL.

            Vaughn’s performance is important in setting the tone for what follows.  He isn’t a screaming caricature, he respects his troops.  He isn’t simply trying to turn them into robo-soldiers, he’s someone who understands his men, and understands the sacrifice they are about to make.  It’s significant that he goes into combat with them.

            When, early on, the whole platoon is punished for Doss’ pacifism, their revenge against him is quite restrained.  But then, the plot requires us to like these guys and root for them, later on, so they can’t be seen to do anything too monstrous.  It’s quite a trick to swiftly sketch-in a roomful of grunts, all wearing the same uniform, all doing the same things.  But we quickly get to pick out a few characters, and they will see us through to the all-important show-down atop the cliff.  We learn to care for them as much as Doss does.

Vince Vaughn giving the performance of his career (so far) as the restrained, humane, Sgt. Howell, leading his men into harm's way, not sending them in first.

            Hacksaw Ridge wears its heart on its sleeve.  Indeed, it wears most every organ externally at one point or another, as Gibson’s famous eye for gore continues undiminished.  But, despite the eye-watering gore and the relentlessly merciless violence, this is a film which doesn’t sink into exploitation, because it’s a story about inner strength and decency.  It’s a film about faith.  Cleverly, Gibson saves this from being a cloying Biography Channel Sunday-afternoon movie, because he doesn’t lecture; the film isn’t on a mission to convert.  It shows Doss being confused by his own faith, but never conflicted about it.  He doesn’t know why it’s right not to pick up a gun, he just knows it is.  It’s his personal faith, produced by his personal circumstances, no-one else’s.

            Faith is a strong thread running through both Hacksaw and Soldiers - in that film Gibson prays with his children at the beginning.  The appeal of this to Gibson is obvious now, less so when the film first came out.  It’s worth saying that it’s an impressive achievement that Gibson put this film together.  Just five years ago, his career was in tatters and his behaviour had reduced him to a comedian’s punch-line.  Yet, he managed to put together the finance and get the production and distribution support for this epic movie.  It probably helps that he still has interests in Icon, the production company he set up in the 90s).  But there’s no denying that he is still an impressive presence on screen (his turn as the villain in 2014’s Expendables 3 demonstrated that), however, for this film, he stayed behind the camera, didn’t even put himself in there as a cameo; and that was a wise decision because, on-screen, he is still a controversial presence; off-screen, not so much (we’ll see if that continues to be the case if he continues with his plan to make a sequel to 2004’s Passion of the Christ).

Gibson behind the scenes - here with Sam Worthington and, Jesus, Vince Vaughn isn't that tall is he?

            There was never any doubt that Gibson is a director of considerable skill - Braveheart (1995) demonstrated that beyond any doubt.  Hacksaw Ridge shows that twenty turbulent years have left this ability undimmed.  Maybe he is planning to ‘do a Clint’ and retreat behind the camera for the rest of his career.  If so, there seems to be little downside to that, as he remains a great instinctive film-maker.

            The core of this film is the night Doss spends alone on the ridge, and it is a riveting sequence.  It benefits from the character-building of the film’s first half.  It benefits from the way that everyone since Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1999) shoots World War 2; the way they already shot Viet-Nam, as being gritty and dirty and genuinely scary.  This isn’t some nostalgic piece of flag-waving, this is history as it is lived at ground level, minute by minute, heartbeat by heartbeat.

            I’ve watched Hacksaw Ridge with film-geek friends, with my partner (who hates war films) and with my dad (who prefers ’em to feature Clint or John Wayne) .  They all loved it.  So, watch Hacksaw Ridge.  Then, maybe go back and give We Were Soldiers another chance.  The two films complement each other! 

            Hacksaw succeeds in telling an inspiring tale that works for a wide audience!  And I defy anyone to not feel a pricking at the corners of their eyes when they hear the words “help me one more”.

“We're waiting for Private Doss to finish praying for us"  That's it, I'm fillin' up, now ...

Dir: Mel Gibson
Writers:  Robert Schenkkan & Andrew Knight

Dur: 139 mins.
Cert: 15