Actor and director Mel Gibson is back. Come November 4, his new movie “Hacksaw Ridge” will showing at movie theatres, putting an end to his years-long absence from directing. The new movie stars Andrew Garfield portraying the Seventh Day Adventist Desmond Doss, who refused to shoulder a weapon during the Second World War.
Hacksaw Ridge could simply be presented as a war film, but Gibson said during an interview with Louise Dupont of France 24 that it was, in fact, actually meant to be an anti-war movie.
“Most war movies are against the war, but we must be sympathetic to our fighters,” Gibson explained. When he was a kid, he moved to Australia, missing the draft that would have sent him to Vietnam at age 18. By that time, however, the war had ended. He was 17.
Gibson, who is also recognizable for his depiction of Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace in the 20-year-old film Braveheart, said even though he detests war, he is very fond of heroism and courage represented by combatants, Christian Today reported.
His father didn’t agree with the Vietnam War, but those men who fought in the war win his appreciation and honour because many of them lost a great deal. After returning home, they suffered. They deserve some recognition, he explained.
He marvels at Doss’s formidable Christian religion. He told the Hollywood Reporter that Doss went to war unarmed because of his strong reliance on God.
To go into a battle zone that way with the artillery and bullets all around, to face that with your only weapon being faith, it has to be truly powerful. That’s an incontestable portion of the story that he finds stirring, Gibson said.
Hacksaw Ridge opens early in November.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g5mQ69ROvo