I'm not the type to enjoy the war genre. I find the glorification of war in cinema rather disgusting, and often enough it feels as if it's nothing more than propaganda; attempting to justify the means.
Hacksaw Ridge, for the most part, is about one particular soldier: Desmond Doss, who served in World War 2 for the sole purpose of being a combat medic. One that refuses to even hold a weapon. His goal is to save as many people as possible, but never kill.
While the story of Desmond Doss is certainly inspiring: a man set on doing his part in fixing the world as it tries so desperately to tear itself apart. The film itself distances itself from what could have been a much more realistic approach to the scenes Desmond Doss witnessed.
For some odd cinematic reason, the film gives us these slow motion, 'cool' moments of action in which Japanese soldiers are mostly gunned down in what we'd consider moments of heroism, where God is on our side, because apparently God picks sides in war and allows one side to brutally murder the other.
Now, aside from the unnecessary action scenes that do in fact romanticise the events of war, the moments in which we see Desmond Doss on the frontline do put things into perspective; when he is on screen, it's clear how terrifying and outright insane it would be to run into battle with not a single weapon to defend yourself with. It's hard to imagine yourself at war, and it's even harder to imagine yourself at war without a weapon as the enemy throws everything they have at you.
It's tough to decide whether I'd recommend the film, and that's mostly down to the fact that I find it hard to see who would enjoy the action scenes, and only a small amount of historical detail. The first half of the film does focus on Desmond Doss' life, but it seems to get mixed up as the story progresses. It loses its personal touch, and that ultimately ruins it for me.