Review: "Hacksaw Ridge"

Though it’s a little too self-serious, and emphasizes the devastation of war to the extent it overshadows the grace of its pacifist subject, “Hacksaw Ridge” has immense and undeniable power. It’s a World War II drama about a man who refused to fight because of his religious beliefs, but whose heroism in combat earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Andrew Garfield plays Desmond Doss, a humble kid from backwater Virginia who enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor despite having vowed never to kill, or even touch a gun. Part of that comes from his faith, being a Seventh-day Adventist, but also having grown up to an abusive father (Hugo Weaving) who continually threatened him, his mother (Rachel Griffiths) and brother.

Garfield breathes life into what could have been one-note character, helped by a nuanced screenplay by Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan (based on a book by Booton Herndon). He plays Doss as a man of tremendous conviction but little personal pride. His obstinacy in the face of officers threatening to court-martial him for refusing orders comes from the knowledge that he couldn’t live with himself having betrayed his beliefs.

I am certain Garfield's name will get tossed around during the awards season. It deserves to be. 

“Hacksaw” is being widely touted as Mel Gibson’s comeback. It’s been 10 years since he last directed a film (“Apocalypto”) after the gargantuan phenomenon of “The Passion of the Christ,” and the even larger impact of his hateful statements following a drunk driving arrest.

As before his filmmaking style is brash, energetic, unsubtle. If filmmakers could be classified by musical genre, Gibson falls closely to Oliver Stone: hard rock with lots of power chords and screaming guitar solos. After a while it can be overwhelming, but it’s hard to refute that his films thrum their way into your chest.

The combat section, which take up the second half of the film, is a belching apocalypse of smoke and fire, blood and torn bodies. Gibson’s camera lingers over pieces of men strewn across the titular ridge of Okinawa, which the Japanese fought to their last breath to keep in the closing days of the Pacific campaign.

He turns to slow motion again and again (and again), mesmerized by the ballet of death. As we know from “Christ,” Gibson has his fixation with the ravages of the flesh.

It gives the war sequence its verve, but also distracts too much from the plight of Doss. He flits from wounded man to wounded man, providing drugs, bandages, tourniquets. Only after the fighting has calmed and the Americans have fled does his true bravery emerge, and it’s by far the film’s shining apex.

It’s notable that Gibson, having spent his long career playing and directing men of violence, has presented us with a pacifist as his newest hero.

The other soldiers are given broad strokes, set apart by a few personality or physical traits to make them distinguishable. Luke Bracey impresses as Idiot, a hard-charging natural fighter who transforms from Doss’ chief bully to fiercest protector. Vince Vaughn brings comic notes to the role of the hardcase sergeant, and Sam Worthington plays the resolute captain who must deal with a very unique recruit.

The first half of the movie is a study in contrasts, a languid exploration of Doss’ early life, romance with a young nurse played by Teresa Palmer, conflict with his dad (a traumatized WWI vet) over enlisting and his tough go during basic training, where he is branded a coward. It works, but only because we know where it’s all heading.

As I was preparing to write this review, I was surprised to see “Hacksaw Ridge” described as a Christian film. It’s understandable, since “Christ” became a hit largely through underground screenings for church groups, and it gave faith-based moviemaking a jolt that continues today.

But I disagree with applying that label here. This is a movie about an exceptional Christian. It does not try to proselytize to the audience, but simply show Desmond Doss for who he was: a man of resounding faith who saw a world pulling itself apart and felt compelled to bind the wound.

Reeling Backward: "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982)

You could probably summarize the entire plot of "The Year of Living Dangerously" on a postcard, with space left over. Not a lot really happens, yet what does transpire seems so consequential and filled with dramatic heft.

The film, directed by Peter Weir based on the novel by C.J. Koch, is a testament to the observation by screenwriting legend William Goldman that dialogue is often the least important part of a script. The movie has many long wordless or near-wordless scenes that use imagery and music to pull us into an emotional vortex of longing and dread. Weir and Koch co-wrote the screenplay along with David Williamson.

Take the scene where callow young Australian journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) and British embassy worker Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) first hook up in Indonesia circa 1965. They've been introduced -- set up, really -- by a mutual friend (more on that later) and have sort of skipped around each other nonchalantly a couple of times before. Then they show up at a party for Westerners, each accompanied by different people.

Jill is just ravishing, creamy shoulders and lithe limbs bursting out of a strappy dress; Guy is seething and sweaty, filled with primal urges. They're incredibly beautiful people, and everyone in the room can't take their eyes off them. They bump into each other while dancing with others, try to brush it off, but their attraction is combustible, and palpable.

One gets the sense the other party goers are only there to serve as witnesses to their joining.

Later they escape from a stuffy embassy party and drive off in his car for a tryst, despite the strict military curfew and shocking break with the Brits' starched-shirt decorum. They run a blockade, Guy's Chevy Impala gets filled with bullet holes, but they laugh and smile at their little rebellion, as the electronic thrum of Vangelis' "L'Enfant" buoys them into the night.

Most of the talk Jill and Guy do share is logistics: Where are you going? When are you leaving? Why won't you return my calls? The only real substantive conversation they have onscreen is Jill (who's actually a spy in the book though it's only hinted at in the movie) telling Guy about an incoming shipment of arms to support the Indonesia Communists (PKI), a clear indication a coup is imminent. Guy opts to use the intel for a story -- rather than save his own neck as she intended -- vaulting his career but betraying Jill.

"Year" is masterful at evoking a specific time and place -- one that, frankly, isn't high in the consciousness of most Americans. Indonesia in the mid-1960s was a place of burgeoning rebellion, and a backwater for aspiring foreign corespondents like Guy. He and the other journalists, from the Washington Post or whatnot, pine for promotions to Saigon, where the real action is. They're fighting each other for scraps of information from the government of the dictator-like president, Sukarno, and for newsprint inches and airtime back home before an indifferent public.

Weir spent much of his film stock simply representing the street people of Jakarta, underlining the humbling poverty and rising anger of that period. (The film was actually shot in the Philippines, as the Indonesians were hostile to the story; the movie was banned there until 1999.)

Here was a people who had felt the yoke of the West, shrugged it off, and now felt the push-and-pull of various factions vying for power: the establishment, the Muslim leaders, the Communists, etc. Meanwhile, the people suffered and starved.

The film is likely most remembered today for the casting of Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan, the mysterious and oddly affecting photographer/enigma who befriends both Guy and Jill, and nudges them together. It was one of the first major instances of a performer playing a character of the opposite gender. Hunt won the Academy Award for her performance by a Supporting Actress, launching an unlikely career that has remained busy till today.

She's completely believable as a man; Hunt chopped her hair to a severe short style, wore padding under Billy's standard uniform of trousers and a vaguely Hawaiian shirt, with the shirt pocket stuffed to give it a weighted, untidy look. Billy, of course, is not an average-looking person: he's supposed to be half Caucasian and half Chinese, and a dwarf to boot.

Billy also seems to be asexual; everything about him screams Other. Yet he easily slides in and out of the Sukarno corridors of power, or mingles with the street people unnoticed. He is accepted, or at least tolerated, wherever he goes. His exceptionalism somehow grants him a form of invisibility, which he cherishes and utilizes for his purposes.

Billy's motivations are hard to discern, and fickle. He claims to admire Sukarno for his puppet master skill at balancing the forces arrayed against him, but cares deeply about the suffering of the people. He has unofficially adopted a prostitute and her sickly young boy, bringing toys, medicine and cash to their miserable hovel by the polluted river, where they bathe and drink. When the boy dies of starvation and illness, Billy snaps and vents his anger at the regime that fails to feed its people.

Similarly, Billy takes an immediate liking to Guy, seeing him as a white knight, and uses his influence and connections to see that his career is a success, getting Guy interviews with the Muslim leader and other key figures. Billy also sets him up with Jill, whom he adores in a chaste way -- even once asking her to marry him. When Guy betrays Jill for the story, Billy sees it as cheating on his own trust, too.

Capable of great affection and monumental anger, Billy blows like a zephyr in whatever direction his passions take him. He keeps meticulous files on everyone he knows, including Jill and Guy, whose meetings he secretly photographs.

After Guy discovers this, Billy denies being a spy, and this is probably true. He's observing life rather than living it, gathering information and using it to move people around like pawns in a game of chess he's not trying to win or lose, but simply play with a sense of purity he knows is unattainable.

I marvel at how politically incorrect this film would be if it were released today. Hunt playing a man would probably still be celebrated as brave, if for different reasons, but a white actress portraying an Asian character would be unacceptable.

Similarly, Billy calling out another Australian correspondent (Noel Ferrier) for dallying with his boytoy servant -- a virtual death sentence in the Indonesia of six decades ago -- is an act that today would be viewed as irredeemably homophobic. Add in the way the American reporter (Michael Murphy) enjoys using the cheap local female flesh as fodder for his vile self-aggrandizing.

But "The Year of Living Dangerously" is not a film that tries to comfort us. Rather, it shows us the dark underbelly of what humanity is capable. The Americans and British and Aussies do not have a direct hand in perpetuating the misery of the Indonesian people, but they're more than happy to employ it as a lever for their own personal devices. I think of the many scenes in which the Westerners drink and carouse as the natives look on with envy and growing hatred.

Gibson's Guy Hamilton is neither hero, as Billy would have him, or villain, but somewhere in the grey. He wants the scoop and he wants the girl, and he's willing to do questionable things to get them, even if it means parlaying one for the other. But he's genuinely sickened by the poverty and human waste; the other reporters and even Jill criticize him for the "melodramatic" tone of his copy.

"The Year of Living Dangerously" is a grand and grim reminder of our capacities for hope and despair, and that you don't need a lot of words to convey big ideas.

Video review: "The Beaver"

"The Beaver" is an imperfect movie with an imperfect star, Mel Gibson. But the film rises above its shortcomings to become a genuinely compelling journey of one man's descent into mental instability, and how he rises out of it with the unlikely help of a ratty old hand puppet shaped like a beaver.

Gibson plays Walter Black, CEO of a toy company whose life has come off its rails. He can't even speak to his wife and kids, and mostly dodges work to lay about in bed. But he finds his voice again -- figuratively and literally -- when he starts using the Beaver to speak for him.

Others aren't accepting at first, but when he reveals that it's a prescribed therapeutic tool, people soon accept the reinvigorated Walter, even if he comes with a sidekick straight of bad cable access television.

What I liked most about "The Beaver" -- which combines elements of both tragedy and comedy -- is that it takes real risks. Director (and co-star) Jodie Foster and screenwriter Kyle Killen are working outside of familiar Hollywood tropes, refusing to put the story and characters into neat little boxes.

For example, just Walter seems to have emerged from his swirling vortex of self-hatred, his psyche becomes unhinged again. He does something so extreme, it's likely half the audience will be turned off.

But for those willing to stick it out, "The Beaver" is a redemptive story told with off-kilter charm.

Video extras are a bit on the underwhelming side. The goodies are the same for the DVD and Blu-ray editions.

There's a feature-length commentary by Foster -- which would've been so much more interesting if she could've been paired with Gibson -- a making-of documentary and a handful of deleted scenes.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 tars

Review: "The Beaver"

How wonderfully unexpected "The Beaver" is. Just when you think you've got it figured out, this daring and heartfelt film takes another astonishing turn.

The story of a wasted man who finds he can only talk through a furry hand puppet, it wears the clothes of a comedy, but there are sequences of the blackest moods imaginable. Audiences will be kept reeling, not knowing when to laugh and when to bask in the solemn weight of tragedy.

At the screening I attended, the same scene often produced the opposite reaction in different people. Normally I cringe when people guffaw at what is clearly intended to be a serious moment, but with "The Beaver" I didn't mind because the movie's appeal is centered in its ambiguity.

It's hardly a perfect film. Surprisingly, because it's directed by a woman, Jodie Foster, the female characters seemed underwritten, existing mostly to facilitate the emotional journey of the males in their lives. And the film makes a sudden left turn near the end that I know is going to alienate half the audience.

All I can say is it was a thrilling experience to go into a movie without any notion where it was headed. In an era of safe filmmaking with stories and characters tied in uniformly neat bows, "The Beaver" operates outside the box ... and then it kicks the box down the street.

The film's unruly success is anchored by its wayward star, Mel Gibson. I know, we're all legally required to hate Mel these days, because some hateful stuff spills out of him in unguarded moments. To quote Captain Renault from "Casablanca," I'm shocked, shocked to discover that human frailties exist among the above-the-title folks.

Other Hollywood icons have abused their children, like Joan Crawford, or drugged and sodomized a 13-year-old, like Roman Polanski. Even Charlie Chaplin had an insatiable desire for underage girls (even if he often ended up marrying them). Yet I still watch their movies and am transported above the sulfurous bile of their earthly failings.

In Gibson's case, his recent notoriety actually ends up helping the movie. The screenplay -- an original (in the truest sense of that word) by rookie Kyle Killen -- starts right off with Walter Black (Gibson) already down in his pit of despair. We don't really know how he got to the bottom, but Gibson's troubles act as a shorthand for the self-loathing descent he obviously experienced.

Walter is the CEO of Jerry Co., a floundering toy manufacturer. He cannot speak to his wife Meredith (Foster) or their sons, young Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) and high school senior Porter (Anton Yelchin). Or really summon the energy to do anything but sleep.

Finally kicked out by Meredith, he discovers a frayed old beaver hand puppet in a dumpster and puts it on. Awaking from a stupor the next morning, he finds the puppet talking to him in a low-rent British accent (I thought of Ray Winstone). He introduces himself as The Beaver and tells Watler he's here "to save your miserable life."

Soon Walter and The Beaver have reunited with the family, and everything's hunky-dory again. Meredith is a little put off by the puppet at first, but when Walter produces a card from his psychiatrist authorizing it as therapy, she's thrilled to have her husband back again.

Not so much Porter, who so despises his dad he compiles a list of the similarities he shares with him, which he keeps as a list of shame. Porter has a side business writing term papers for classmates, and is gobsmacked when the cheerleader valedictorian (Jennifer Lawrence) taps him to craft a graduation speech for him.

I don't want to give away any more, because the film's serendipity is its main charm. "The Beaver" always kept me guessing, and even though it ventures into places some people may not like, I respect it as an exercise in genuinely brave movie-making.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "Edge of Darkness"

Mel Gibson, in his first starring role in eight years, is effective and believable as a tough Boston cop out for revenge after his daughter is murdered. But the plot is such a discombobulated mess, the movie comes across as a disjointed set of knife fights and pummeling of suspects.

Gibson plays Craven, a veteran detective who becomes unhinged when his only child is gunned down on his doorstep. His investigation leads to the castle-like headquarters of Northmoor, the mysterious corporation where she worked. The cryptic boss (Danny Huston) gives elusive answers to Craven's questions. Meanwhile, a British spook (Ray Winstone) is dispatched to deal with Craven, but ends up befriending him.

Director Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") knows how to construct action scenes. But the script contains abrupt shifts in mood and tone. We never get to know Craven prior to his daughter's murder, so he only exists as a vehicle for revenge. And the strange interspersing of humorous moments severs any connection the audience might have developed for Craven's pain.

Mel Gibson still has the juice. But he's going to need better material than this for his cinematic rehabilitation.

"Edge of Darkness" is available on DVD and in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack that includes a digital copy of the film.

Extras are fair to middling. There are four deleted scenes totaling about five minutes. Watching them, one can see why they were left on the cutting room floor.

A nine-part set of featurettes contains a whole lot of glad-handing, but a few juicy tidbits are to be found. Gibson traces the film's roots to 17th century Jacobean revenge tragedies, in which the villains have names that describe their flaws and, as Gibson succinctly puts it, "everybody kills each other in the end."

Knowing he had a one-way-ticket, Craven's character was even supposed to pay for his own funeral, in a scene that was never shot.

Campbell describes the BBC miniseries he directed in the 1980s that formed the basis for this film. The TV version had more political overtones that were jettisoned.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "Edge of Darkness"

"Edge of Darkness" is a strange, strange movie. Not a terrible one, though its good parts are scattered in a wilderness of discombobulated scenes and disjointed story elements.

Mel Gibson -- in his first starring role in eight years -- plays a familiar archetype, an old-school cop out for revenge after his child is kidnapped/murdered/raped. It's a forceful, effective performance; we believe Gibson as Craven, a Boston detective who becomes unhinged when his daughter Emma (Bojana Navakovic) is gunned down on the front steps of his house.

But unlike, say, last year's "Taken" with Liam Neeson in a similar movie, we never see Craven in any context other than revenge mode. He does not seem to exist as a person outside of roughing up suspects and hunting down clues.

We know he owns a nice house in Roslindale, because that's where the murder took place. Presumably he had a wife once, but she's never mentioned. Craven is a detective, and declines to take a leave of absence, but abandons his own duties (if he ever had any) to pursue his daughter's killers. No one in the chain of command ever questions why he's running around getting into knife fights and highway shoot-outs.

The investigation leads to the doorstep of a corporation called Northmoor, where his daughter worked, and then things really get weird.

In his interview with the Northmoor boss, Craven is immediately put off by the man's elusive answers and strange behavior. The boss is played by Danny Huston, who has been so typecast as the heavy that whenever he first appears onscreen in a film, the audience thinks to itself, "The villain has just arrived." Huston really should talk to his agent about doing a romantic comedy or something just to mix things up.

The strangeness deepens. Northmoor apparently is into some nasty business, with the government's tacit approval, and a spook named Jedburgh is dispatched to take care of things. Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) meets with Craven, talks to him, seems to like him -- while making it clear that he may be inclined to rub Craven out at some indeterminate point in the future.

Director Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") and screenwriters William Monahan and Andrew Bovell based the film on an old British TV series that Campbell directed. Perhaps that explains the episodic flow of the action, with big events followed by weepy scenes where Craven imagines he's seeing his daughter, still a little girl.

The transitions are abrupt, and often arbitrary.

At one point Craven comes across a name associated with his daughter, goes to the man's house and starts beating the hell out of him. He stops hitting the guy, saying his daughter wouldn't approve, then remembers that she's dead and starts wailing away again.

The audience laughs, and our critical link to Craven's pain shatters in a moment of cheap humor. What's more, the guy he's beating up, who seems bewildered by this assault, then disappears with nary another reference to him.

For all we know, Craven had the wrong address and was pummeling a pharmacist.

As much as I was perplexed by the movie's strange fits, I was never bored by it. I enjoyed the running joke between Jedburgh and Craven that, "Everything's illegal in Massachusetts." Jedburgh, who for some reason is British, wryly suggests it's "payback for the Tea Party."

I doubt "Edge of Darkness" will herald Mel Gibson's return to stardom. He's still a convincing performer, in need of better material.

2 stars