Hacksaw Ridge
Summit Entertainment | Release Date: November 4, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 3, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge is one of the best films of 2016. And the victory is all the more sweet for Gibson in that he succeeds on his own weird terms. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 2, 2016
The best war film since "Saving Private Ryan." It is violent, harrowing, heartbreaking and unforgettable. And yes, it was directed by Mel Gibson. He deserves a medal, too. Read full review
90
We Got This CoveredBernard BooNov 8, 2016
Though it's a bit of a wobbly mess at times, Hacksaw Ridge ultimately winds up being a deeply moving character study about an unlikely American hero. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 3, 2016
Remarkably, Hacksaw Ridge coalesces into a memorable whole. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 3, 2016
Thanks to some of the greatest battle scenes ever filmed, Gibson once again shows his staggering gifts as a filmmaker, able to juxtapose savagery with aching tenderness. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniNov 3, 2016
Garfield melts into his Doss character in a performance that seems impossibly still and tranquil. He’s mesmerizing. It’s almost impossible to imagine he ever played Spider-Man. Read full review
83
ConsequenceRandall ColburnOct 31, 2016
It’s a movie about bravery and the power of inspiration, be it divine or corporeal, in moments of hopelessness. Desmond’s faith is placed front and center, and the way it operates here celebrates not the object of that faith, but the power it has to motivate both Desmond and his squad. Read full review
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 4, 2016
While derivative and endlessly cheesy, it’s a characteristically visceral return for Gibson, and one that confirms that little has changed in the man’s singular artistic psyche. Read full review
80
EmpirePhil de SemlyenJan 23, 2017
Occasionally soapy on the homefront but cataclysmic in combat, this is a worthy addition to the WWII canon. Garfield underpins it all with skill, showing that sometimes, war can be humanising too. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyJan 23, 2017
Gibson returns to film’s frontline with a ferociously felt anti-war movie, while Garfield invests his Doss with tremendous conviction. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 2, 2016
Say what you will about Mad Mel Gibson, he’s a driven, febrile artist, and there isn’t a second in his war film Hacksaw Ridge — not even the ones that should register as clichés — that doesn’t burn with his peculiar intensity. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 10, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge is a fantastically moving and bruising war film that hits you like a raw topside of beef in the face – a kind of primary-coloured Guernica that flourishes on a big screen with a crowd. Read full review
80
Time OutDave CalhounSep 6, 2016
Overall, there aren’t many shades of gray in Hacksaw Ridge, but it’s a movie that fulfills its purpose with vigor, confidence and swagger, and those battle scenes are impossible to take your eyes off. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 4, 2016
Themes of courage, patriotism, faith and unwavering adherence to personal beliefs have been a constant through Gibson's directing projects, as has a fascination with bloodshed and gore. Those qualities serve this powerful true story of heroism without violence extremely well, overcoming its occasional cliched battle-movie tropes to provide stirring drama. Read full review
80
The GuardianAndrew PulverSep 4, 2016
As repellent a figure as many may still find Gibson, I have to report he’s absolutely hit Hacksaw Ridge out of the park. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 2, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge is drenched in the blood of the fallen and the mud forever caked on the boots of those who survived to tell the tale. It’s the closest thing to feeling as though you’ve marched a mile in those shoes. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenNov 3, 2016
With Andrew Garfield in the lead role and Mel Gibson in the director’s chair for the first time in 10 years, “Hacksaw” is an incredibly powerful picture once it gets to the battle scenes. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithNov 3, 2016
War was both cruel and magnificent, as Churchill once put it. To Gibson, it still is. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 3, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge embraces many of the clichés of the war movie but, instead of laying them out in a rote fashion, the film synthesizes them into a visceral, ultimately inspirational result. This is about heroism, patriotism, and an adherence to convictions. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 3, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge winds up being a rousing piece of entertainment that also happens to be an affecting portrait of spiritual faith and simple human decency. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezNov 3, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge may be too syrupy for cynical tastes and too brutal for the timid. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattNov 3, 2016
Despite its promise, Hacksaw never really delves into the moral grays; it’s just black and white and red all over. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 2, 2016
One might call this a refinement of Gibson’s fixations as a director: battles more terrifying than "Braveheart" and a portrayal of sacrificial lambhood that’s more compelling than "The Passion Of The Christ," in part because Doss, as much of an unwavering do-gooder as he might be, is an actual character with conflicts. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 2, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge is faithful to the story of Desmond Doss in every sense of the word. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 2, 2016
Brutally intense and elegantly crafted, the film showcases the stellar acting chops of Andrew Garfield and Vince Vaughn, and it’s director Mel Gibson’s best work behind the scenes since 1995’s Oscar best-picture winner Braveheart. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 2, 2016
[Gibson's] talent as a filmmaker, Desmond’s story and Garfield’s understated performance make Hacksaw Ridge a good movie, a straightforward story of faith and courage whose complications arise not in the story, but in the telling of it. Read full review
70
Village VoiceBilge EbiriNov 2, 2016
As a filmmaker, Gibson understands that there is something fundamentally irreconcilable about Doss’ love of peace, his abject and visceral revulsion at battle and a war movie’s embrace of violence. Somehow, the director has made a film that can contain that contradiction — that remains irreducible. He breaks his own movie, and somehow the movie is better for it. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 2, 2016
Desmond Doss was calm, humble and courageous, qualities Mr. Gibson honors but does not share. It is possible to be moved and inspired by Desmond’s exploits while still feeling that his convictions have been exploited, perhaps even betrayed. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczNov 2, 2016
It’s gripping, eye-opening and when it comes to heroics, thought-provoking. But it also suffers from grisliness, sentiment and self-indulgence. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 31, 2016
The result, though corny at times, treads close to madness and majesty alike, and nobody but Gibson could have made it. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 10, 2016
I don’t think you could tell this story properly or honestly without being forthright about the horrors of the Pacific Theater, and as Gibson dramatizes them, they put Doss’ actions in jaggedly sharp perspective. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 4, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge returns to the themes which have professionally and personally motivated 60-year-old Gibson for his entire life; he’s never been subtle, but he’s certainly effective when it comes to delivering his heart-felt message. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 4, 2016
Hacksaw Ridge is the work of a director possessed by the reality of violence as an unholy yet unavoidable truth. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 4, 2016
The war scenes in Hacksaw Ridge, which take up almost half the screen time, are almost on a level with the D-Day invasion sequence from “Saving Private Ryan.” Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 2, 2016
It feels disingenuous to celebrate Doss' moral code by vividly pretending to demolish it. Nobody disputes the notion that war is hell. But maybe this particular war movie didn't need that. Read full review
65
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 4, 2016
While Hacksaw Ridge is undeniably made with great care and skill, for all of its good intentions it can never refute that famous Truffaut observation that making an anti-war film is essentially impossible, since to portray something is to ennoble it. In celebrating this legendary pacifist, Gibson and company ennoble the hell out of violence. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzNov 3, 2016
True to form, Hacksaw Ridge draws equally on Gibson's bottomless thirst for mayhem and his sincerely held religious beliefs — or some of them, anyway. It's a movie at war with itself. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughNov 3, 2016
It is epic in scope, intimate in detail, and otherworldly in its dimensions, like the Bayeux Tapestry with special effects and a stentorian soundtrack. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 3, 2016
Vince Vaughn, plainly enjoying himself, plays his casually astonished sergeant, who encourages hazing and beatings of Doss. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 2, 2016
It’s a good-if-not-great movie, old fashioned but anachronistic dialogue, action that’s more impressive than inspiring, a combat film that like Eastwood’s Western “Unforgiven,” tries to have it both ways — a sermon against the violence of man delivered in a very violent story. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 2, 2016
Gibson has made a movie that is somehow both deeply dishonest and crushingly sincere — and still at war with itself, long after the final shot has been fired. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 2, 2016
There are movies based on real events that must be embellished in order to make them work on the big screen. Mel Gibson's World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge is not such a movie. In fact, it's the opposite. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 10, 2016
There's no getting away from it, Gibson has produced another bombastic, crowd-pleasing and obviously blood-soaked movie which expertly glorifies that which its hero was against. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 3, 2016
It is almost as if Gibson is daring his audience to turn away from his opera of barbarity – but perversely, his violence is the only compelling element of Hacksaw Ridge. Perhaps ironically for a war film, the rest of it is mostly a draw. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayOct 28, 2016
This is a work of defiantly simplistic, classically structured Hollywood storytelling, and Mel Gibson takes to its hokey plot points with some gusto. Read full review
50
IndieWireBen CrollSep 7, 2016
A blood-soaked, bone-crunching hymn to religious devotion and faith, Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t hum Mel Gibson’s favorite themes; it shouts them. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 4, 2016
Along with screenwriters Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight, Gibson, whose lack of directorial subtlety but skill with action both reach an apex here, is not content to tell the true story of Desmond Doss and his unshakeable, courage-giving faith. He wants to convince us that his faith was, in fact, the truth. Read full review
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