BEFORE: As I explained yesterday, I'm choosing to not follow the Toni Collette link out of last night's film, so instead Richard Roxburgh carries over from "Like Minds", and gets me one step closer to the end of January.
THE PLOT: WWII Army medic Desmond Doss, who refuses to kill people, serves during the Battle of Okinawa and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.
AFTER: I'm glad they included footage at the end of the film of the real Desmond Doss, who lived until 2006, because otherwise I would have thought this film was a complete rip-off of "Sergeant York", which also featured a conscientious objector - at first, anyway. York struggled with his conscience and eventually picked up a gun. Of course, that film was set during World War I, and this one's set during WWII, but the main thrust of the storyline is the same, the soldier opposed to violence for religious reasons ends up saving many lives through his heroism.
Not to take anything away from the real Doss's actions, but perhaps Garfield's portrayal of him was just a little too hokey, and a little too self-righteous. There's a way for a character to hold to his religious beliefs without coming off like he feels that he's better than everyone else, and I just didn't feel that here. Like, of COURSE there's a discrepancy between what soldiers do during war and then some of them still believing that they're following the commandment that says, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", but since it benefits those of us protected by soldiers, it's just polite to not point this out.
But even though this story is based on real events, unlike, say, "The Way Back", there's still something that just doesn't add up here. Why was there so much confusion over Desmond's unwillingness to fire a gun? Was he lied to by the recruiting officers, who said something like, "You know, that won't be a problem, I doubt it will even come up during basic training..." or did everyone just assume that once he got to Fort Jackson, he'd see the error of his ways and get so caught up in following orders that he'd fall right in line?
If he was so sure that he wanted to be a combat medic, was he even in the right training program to begin with? I'll admit I know next to nothing about army procedures - during World War II were medics pulled from the same training facility as regular soldiers, or were they recruited from medical school or something? I'd imagine that there might be a completely different set of training drills for a medic, but then again, I can see how it would be handy for the medics to also have the ability to handle a rifle, and be acquainted with the same terrain skills, obstacle courses, etc. as the regular soldiers.
As the film itself points out, Desmond could have served his country in some other way, like working in an arms factory, or in some clerical capacity, so it's still a little unclear why he felt he HAD to be on the front lines, close to combat. In the end it was great that he was, it's just a little hard to understand why he had to buck the system and risk a dishonorable discharge just to prove a point.
And I'm still left with the NITPICK POINT, where if Desmond (and presumably his family) was really a Seventh-Day Adventist, and therefore morally opposed to violence, then why was he allowed to fight with his brother when they were younger? Why didn't his religious parents act more quickly to stop this particular fight, which escalated and caused an injury to his brother? It almost feels like the film tacked this lesson on just in case the audience wouldn't really buy the religion angle. The fight depicted between a teenage Desmond and his father, in which a gun is involved, causes the same conundrum - did this event turn him off from guns, or was it a necessary component of his religion?
The movie places a great emphasis on Doss' heroic actions at the Battle of Okinawa, spending days avoiding Japanese patrols while locating injured men who were left behind on the battlefield, carrying them to safety and lowering them down off the ridge by rope. But still, the movie also manages to sell his heroic actions short, and also changed a number of facts along the way - reading about the real story of Doss on Wikipedia makes it clear how the movie took shortcuts and simplified the story - his Medal of Honor citation covers events that took place over three weeks, for example, where the movie shortens this to just a few days time.
Also starring Andrew Garfield (last seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2"), Hugo Weaving (last seen in "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"), Rachel Griffiths (last seen in "My Best Friend's Wedding"), Teresa Palmer (last seen in "Triple 9"), Vince Vaughn (last seen in "Into the Wild"), Sam Worthington (last seen in "Everest"), Luke Bracey, Ryan Corr (last seen in "Where the Wild Things Are"), Luke Pegler (last seen in "The Great Raid"), Richard Pyros, Ben Mingay, Firass Dirani (last seen in "Pitch Black"), Damien Thomlinson, Matt Nable (last seen in "Riddick"), Robert Morgan (last seen in "The Proposition"), Nathaniel Buzolic, Michael Sheasby, Nico Cortez, Goran D. Kleut (last seen in "Gods of Egypt"), Ben O'Toole, Jim Robison, Bill Young, Benedict Hardie, James Mackay, Ori Pfeffer, Darcy Bryce, Jacob Warner, Milo Gibson, Tyler Coppin.
RATING: 6 out of 10 flamethrowers
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