Hacksaw Ridge

Why it's worth watching

Hacksaw Ridge is a visually powerful and emotionally stirring masterpiece that honors the real-life faith and courage of Desmond Doss. It demonstrates how one man's uncompromising commitment to God's commandments and his love for his fellow man can overcome the horrors of war. Doss's relentless prayer to save 'just one more' serves as an extraordinary, historically accurate testament to Christian conviction.

For discernment

This is one of the rare mainstream films built openly around a man's faith: Desmond Doss refuses to touch a rifle on scriptural conviction, is beaten and court-martialed for it, and then carries wounded men off Okinawa one by one while praying 'Lord, help me get one more,' and the film treats that conviction as heroic rather than naive. For a believer it is genuinely stirring and honest about the cost of standing on principle. But be warned that Mel Gibson films the battle with extreme, lingering gore: severed limbs with protruding bone, a man using a half-corpse as a shield, faces shot off in close-up, and bodies burning, and it is relentless. The home-front story also shows Doss's father as a violent, drunken WWI veteran who beats his wife and points a gun, and there is a night implying marital sex between Doss and his new wife, plus a soldier's brief pornographic magazine and moderate profanity. The faith is real and reverent; the imagery is punishing, and this is genuinely adult viewing.

• ViolenceExtreme, prolonged battle gore: limbs blown off with exposed bone, a corpse used as a body shield, a face shot off in close-up, bayonet slashings, and burning bodies.
• Faith & familyDoss's father is a drunken, abusive war veteran who beats his wife and threatens the family with a gun; a teenage son wrestles it from him.
• SexualityA scene implies marital sex between Doss and his new wife (she in modest lingerie), and a soldier is briefly seen with a topless-cover magazine.
• LanguageModerate profanity including 's---,' repeated 'a--' and 'd---,' 'son of a b----,' and exclamatory misuse of 'God.'
• SubstancesDoss's father drinks whiskey from the bottle in the day and is described as an alcoholic; soldiers smoke throughout.

Cast

Andrew Garfield

Desmond T. Doss

Sam Worthington

Captain Glover

Vince Vaughn

Sgt Howell

Teresa Palmer

Dorothy Schuttle

Luke Bracey

Smitty Ryker

Hugo Weaving

Tom Doss

Rachel Griffiths

Bertha Doss

Ryan Corr

Lieutenant Manville

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