Hacksaw Ridge (16) - Movie Review

Here we have truly one of the most violent and realistic war movies that has ever come out of Hollywood.  However despite the severe war scenery in WW2 in the Japanese islands, the movie is beyond gripping.
The movie starts off as an All-American story of a boy with a difficult father and sympathetic mother and close younger brother.  The boy, Desmond Doss, played in adulthood by Andrew Garfield, falls in love with a local girl Dorothy, played by Teresa Palmer.
Violence was anathema to Desmond due to all he had seen at home, so after the US enters WW2 he enlists as a conscientious objector in the army.  A conscientious objector is an individual who wishes not to take up arms in a war conflict.
The story begins with parents, Tom and Bertha Doss played by Hugo Weaving and Rachel Griffiths, bringing up two boys in Depression America.  The father had demons from his own WW1 days, but unfortunately he takes out those feelings on his wife and children, and his influence breeds violence among the boys.  However Desmond rebels and vows to relinquish violence at a young age. 
In the army, Desmond has to battle to keep his ‘objector’ status, and he is tested constantly by his commanding officer, Sgt. Howell, who was played well by Vince Vaughn, taking a break from comic roles.
The sheer violence in ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ takes away any image of glamour or romanticism about war, which is unusual even in modern film, writes David Flynn. 
It deserves its six Oscar nominations.   It should do better at the Oscars than it did at the Golden Globes or the British Film Awards where it only picked up an award for Best Editing, which of course it deserves.
Desmond’s true worth, through Andrew Garfield comes through at the Battle of Okinawa scenes.