Hasta el último hombre

Konečně po delší době zase výborný film a rovnou válečný. Jsem poměrně dost alergický na americkou válečnou produkci posledních let, takže Hacksaw Ridge je pro mě příjemným osvěžením. Když budu sarkastický, tak to bude možná Gibsonem a Australany, že z toho zase nevznikla americká oslavná pitomost. Mel Gibson si u mě v jistém okamžiku získal velké sympatie, a proto mu pár amerických scén odpustím, protože jemu rozhodně věřím, že nebude jásat nad americkou dokonalostí a neomylností. Andrew Garfield měl hodně náročný rok, vedle Mlčení si střihnout ještě roli Desmonda Dosse, muselo mu to dát hodně zabrat, proto je oscarová nominace zasloužená. Když jsem se díval na béčkový horor Zhasni a zemřeš, netušil bych, že hlavní herečku uvidím zanedlouho v áčkovém snímku. No a co dodat k mému oblíbenému komediálnímu herci Vincu Vaughnovi? Já se musím smát, i když hraje vážné role. (23.02.2017)

Algunos momentos resultan simplistas y poco pensados, pero desde el punto de vista emocional, la película funciona. Y un trabajo limpio con el aspecto visual del Hollywood dorado siempre complace. Pero Braveheart se adentraba más en el conflicto de personajes, y la rebeldía del protagonista era más apasionada. Hasta el último hombre, por otro lado, sigue siendo «solo» un elegante drama de guerra bastante suave, endurecido por entrañas sangrientas y cien agujeros de bala. Garfield está bien, hasta ahora su mejor papel. (30.11.2016)

I would divide this film into two parts like it is for instance with The Full Metal Jacket. However, as opposed to The Full Metal Jacket, the first half involving training is quite boring, but fortunately the latter half is saved by an absolute precise depiction of war that I haven’t seen in a long time. You see, war is depicted in a pretty brutal manner in this film, which is something I had expected to see in a movie directed by Mel Gibson. At times I was even remembering the brutality and efficiency of SavingPrivate Ryan. The only difference being that Hacksaw Ridge was made about twenty years later. It still is one of the best war movies of the past few years and I am glad that Mel Gibson was in charge of this one, who after all his escapades proved that he still has it in him to get famous again, which he actually managed to achieve due to the fact that he was nominated for an Oscar. By the way, try to find out something about the main character, who is portrayed here by Andrew Garfield. To be honest, I didn’t know what to think about him. I think Desmond Doss was pretty unstable psychologically, which was confirmed in the first hour of the movie. After all, the movie showed this on his despotic father and also on the fact that the entire family was part of some Adventist Church of Jesus’ Latter Days and the family really built who they were on their pacificsm. In any case, I appreciate the effort to help people. You could see that even despite his mental issues, Desmond really meant well and it’s nice that Mel Gibson made such a movie about him. The story is truly epic. (21.02.2017)

If the child version of Andrew Garfield had been hit in the mouth with a brick at the beginning of Hacksaw Ridge instead of his movie brother, the whole film would have made a lot more sense. I wasn’t really sure how seriously I should take a young man with the face of a divine simpleton who isn’t overly familiar with how interpersonal relationships work, let alone international politics. In any case, the film takes him seriously enough to gradually lose all credibility. Instead, it offers an enormous dose of stupidity. It seems to me that the final Assumption scene wandered into the film from an unaired Monty Python sketch. The concept that forms the basis of the entire film is reminiscent of the theatre of the absurd. To make the hero of the biggest explosion of disembowelled guts and blown-off heads since Saving Private Ryan a very devout pacifist who rejects violence of any kind strikes me as a rather cruel irony. It doesn’t seem, however, that Mel Gibson is aware of that. He doesn’t use the scenes of slaughter (which soon become numbing rather than shocking) to lead Desmond to the realisation that war is a lot more hellish than he imagined it would be (in which case the contrast of the first and second halves of the film would have worked better), but to show how hard the boy will have it if he wants to survive longer than a split second without a rifle in his hand. The creation of a hero who rejects violence is thus paradoxically conditioned by pervasive violence. If his buddies had not been torn to pieces by the bullets and grenades of the savage Japanese (an ethnic stereotype that went out of fashion along with John Wayne), he could not have become a hero. I don’t doubt that someone else will find clear logic in what I myself see as an irreconcilable contradiction, but even if it didn’t seem to me that the film is ridiculous at its very core, I would have a hard time finding reasons to recommend it to anyone as an example of the best of what has been made in Hollywood this year. We have seen powerful and generally uncluttered depictions of the pandemonium of war many times before, and the clear narrative structure and textbook segmentation, thanks to which such films never even start to be boring, are qualities that have characterised American films for many decades. Hacksaw Ridge, however, is somewhat underdeveloped both intellectually and formalistically. 60% (03.12.2016)

Laughing in atheist Czechia at the Catholic Gibson going over the top in the story of a soldier who refuses a gun for religious reasons seems like a cheap pose to me. The truth is that just as Gibson does not discount his position as a devout Christian, he does not discount filmmaking compromises. The first hour might have deserved to be turned up a notch and let the viewer peek inside the heads of those for whom a gun is a certainty in war, but the second half is a Rambo-esque rendering plant that, with its refined camera, editing, and sound-chiseled aesthetics, turns a wartime hell into an almost hypnotically artistic experience. This was last done by Ridley Scott at the start of the new millennium. You can have whatever feelings you want about it throughout, but when Garfield's limited acting works at the end, it turns into an emotional waterfall that for once I didn’t feel awkward about. 4 ½. (15.07.2017)