In director Mel Gibson's bloody historical war movie, Hacksaw Ridge, Christian fanaticism blends oddly with the patriotic needs to serve one's country to the point of both ideologies contradicting themselves. The protagonist, Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), is your typical backwoods compassionate idealist, the kind who believes in the "Thou shall not kill" commandment to such an extreme that he actually refuses to carry a fire arm as an American soldier fighting the Japanese during World War II.
Having been raised in a Christian household where both his parents abhor war but worship the Almighty, young Desmond clashes with his Army superiors to such an extreme that he comes across as a delusional peace-corps servant whose beliefs are completely misplaced in an occupation that is all about death and destruction of the so-called-enemy.
The first half of the movie is sort of like Men of Honor lite; the second half is pretty much the opening fifteen minutes of carnage in Saving Private Ryan, but multiplied tenfold: it's bloody brutal. Gibson here clearly explores his love of God and his passion for defending one's land, but he never considers the contradictions at play. Even though Doss chooses not to commit murder himself, he clearly doesn't object to his soldier buddies slaughtering everyone and everything in sight, a gesture of hypocrisy very much in line with the faith of the so called hero (Wouldn't his anti-murder stance have had more impact if it included boycotting the military draft and avoiding enlisting altogether??? Just sayin').
Hacksaw Ridge is manipulative cinematic propaganda of the Christian ideals and the American need to engage in war, both of which come across as full of shit as its filmmaker's "tolerance" of the Jewish faith.
C-
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