Hacksaw Ridge

Can Mel Gibson’s movie about faith justify its amount of gratuitous violence?

hacksaw_ridge_posterCan a movie about non-violence be violent? That’s the question that tormented me as I watched “Hacksaw Ridge,” a war film of immense power that’s inspiring and emotional but also endlessly brutal. How does director Mel Gibson square the film’s religious values with the film’s gratuitous bloodshed? What amount of gore crosses the line, or is the question moot?

Many war films before “Hacksaw Ridge” have depicted unspeakable horrors on screen, all with the conclusion that war is bad, but the context and the means are what separate the good films from the bad, the noble from the tasteless. In fact, Gibson faced similar questions with his film “The Passion of the Christ.”

But “Hacksaw Ridge” does justify the means. The film is one-dimensional in its value system: life can be disturbing and painful, but those who stay true to faith and belief can do real good in this world. There’s much that can be said about the nature of religion in this film, the absence of other forms of belief than a Christian god, the short sighted approach to the values of the Japanese soldiers, let alone the secular American soldiers as supporting characters. But Gibson so earnestly believes with old-fashioned charm and honest storytelling that such a message is worth sharing, no matter the bloodshed the story requires. Continue reading “Hacksaw Ridge”

The Debt

“The Debt” and its characters are torn between the values of romance and honesty. The story behind the former is a surprisingly convincing love triangle, and the details behind the latter are a generic, if not silly, conspiracy thriller.

Three Israeli agents in 1965 are tasked with apprehending a formerly sadistic Nazi doctor, and in 1997, one agent’s suicide reveals the specifics of their successful mission are not what they seem.

We know this because in the future we are first introduced to Helen Mirren as Rachel Singer. Mirren has a wonderful way of revealing both apprehension and regality simultaneously. She and her ex-husband Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) share a few private words in between their daughter’s book tour documenting their heroic endeavors. It turns out that their fellow agent, David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds), has just committed suicide, and a now disabled Stephan requires Rachel to go back into the field one last time.

The plot demands the older versions of the characters maintain a troubling secret, but this truth is not all that life shattering. To me, it would seem as though the truth would merely be an embarrassment and a slight slap in justice’s face, but little else. Continue reading “The Debt”

Avatar

James Cameron and “Avatar” prove the worth of 3-D in this thrilling and visually stunning sci-fi epic.

What were my expectations of “Avatar?” I don’t know. Whatever they were, they were too high, an unattainable level of excellence for an unproven technology in the hands of a capable, yet questionable director. So did James Cameron meet my expectations? Just about.

“Avatar” is a visual wonder with the story, the style and the spectacle to place it all in context. It’s use of 3-D and the facial recognition technology is inherently convincing and in its stunning perfection will likely change the way fantasy, action blockbusters are made. James Cameron has invested an estimated $300 million into his first project since “Titanic” 12 years ago, and every painstaking hour of work and dollar spent shows up on that screen in what is by far the most visually busy and yet remarkable feature of the year. Continue reading “Avatar”