Hacksaw Ridge

“A flaming garbage fire to watch.”

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Title: Hacksaw Ridge
Writers: Robert Schenkkan 👨🏼🇺🇸 and Andrew Knight 👨🏼🇺🇸
Director: Mel Gibson 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

Technical: 2/5

War propaganda from the 1940s combined with religious brainwashing just about sums up Hacksaw Ridge. A point goes to high production values, but everything else about this film was derivative and corny.

Gender: 1/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE

It’s a war movie made by a man. Did anyone really think this was going to get more than a 1/5? 

* I kept track of dialogue for an hour and recorded a scant 4:39mins of women speaking onscreen. That doesn’t even scrape up to a sad 8% share of speaking time.

Race: 1/5

Literally NOT ONE PERSON OF COLOR in this film featuring hundreds of white men. Unless you count, you know, all those evil Japs.

Look, I know that the film’s director, Mel Gibson, is a raging antisemite who has said that “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world” and has used racial slurs against Latino and Black people, but I’m still morbidly impressed with the sheer militancy this film took in barricading people of color from the screen unless being cast as yellow demons.

Mediaversity Grade: F 1.33/5

I swear I didn’t watch this film for the sole purpose of hate-watching. I’m just trying to get all the Golden Globe nominations under my belt before January 8th. But JFC, this movie was a flaming garbage fire to watch. My eyes are still burning.