I thought the battle sequences were incredible - almost pornographically and voyeuristically violent which I find amusing as a contrast to the film's "Christian" values.

The melodrama is what hurt the rest of it for me, personally. I found the bit at the end when everyone stopped so he could pray cringeworthy.

Mel's a great director, though. Braveheart is a classic and Apocalypto was a mini-masterpiece.

@NonSequitur said:

I thought the battle sequences were incredible - almost pornographically and voyeuristically violent which I find amusing as a contrast to the film's "Christian" values.

The melodrama is what hurt the rest of it for me, personally. I found the bit at the end when everyone stopped so he could pray cringeworthy.

Mel's a great director, though. Braveheart is a classic and Apocalypto was a mini-masterpiece.

Thanks for the fair response. Yes, I can see your POV, and how people would see it that way.

I needed a second watch to see how I really felt because a lot of it caught me off guard as it wasn't what I expect. The first time, a couple scenes, like the prayer scene you mentioned, I thought were a little out of place, but then with those scenes, only less than a minute later, it caught on all cylinders again and made up for them.

I also learned the prayer scene is a true event that really took place in real life. Did you know that scene actually really happened? Once I found out it was true, I accepted it. It's amazing how true this stuff was.

You know Gibson had to cut parts out of it because he thought the audience wouldn't believe what Doss really did? I guess it was a scene like that, but he kept it in. He decided not to add the part where Doss gets shot in the arm while being removed on the stretcher and gives up his stretcher while wounded to a guy shot in the head, then crawls 300 yards to the station..

I really enjoyed the melodrama because I was expecting an all out hardcore full war flick. Adding Dorothy really enhanced the emotion and heart of the film. Their relationship was true and beautiful.

That's what makes this probably better than most war movies- it's all true characters and true events with those characters, unlike Saving Private Ryan and many others which were all fictional characters and stories within wars. That matters a lot to me because you feel for the characters more, especially Dorothy and Doss.

I did so much research on this battle and Doss after seeing this and it truly amazed me how true and significant all this was.

The movie truly gets better on rewatch and the more you learn and read up on the true story. It really does. I recommend watching it again for anyone on the fence like I was about how much I liked it the first time. I've now seen it 5 times and I swear each time I like it more and more. It's one of those movies, and that's why I believe this will go down as one of the greatest movies ever made.

Also, this movie got me to cry at least 5 times. Of course with multiple watches, you can desensitize to that, but recently I watched it after over a month and a half since the last time I saw it so it was more fresh, and I was balling like a baby at the end of it. It took me several minutes to dry up.

@NonSequitur said:

Mel's a great director, though. Braveheart is a classic and Apocalypto was a mini-masterpiece.

Agree. Hope he wins best director, though, but think it'll go to Chazelle for LA La Land

@Heisenberg12 said:

I also learned the prayer scene is a true event that really took place in real life. Did you know that scene actually really happened? Once I found out it was true, I accepted it. It's amazing how true this stuff was.

You know Gibson had to cut parts out of it because he thought the audience wouldn't believe what Doss really did? I guess it was a scene like that, but he kept it in. He decided not to add the part where Doss gets shot in the arm while being removed on the stretcher and gives up his stretcher while wounded to a guy shot in the head, then crawls 300 yards to the station..

That's what makes this probably better than most war movies- it's all true characters and true events with those characters, unlike Saving Private Ryan and many others which were all fictional characters and stories within wars. That matters a lot to me because you feel for the characters more, especially Dorothy and Doss.

I did so much research on this battle and Doss after seeing this and it truly amazed me how true and significant all this was.

The movie truly gets better on rewatch and the more you learn and read up on the true story. It really does. I recommend watching it again for anyone on the fence like I was about how much I liked it the first time. I've now seen it 5 times and I swear each time I like it more and more. It's one of those movies, and that's why I believe this will go down as one of the greatest movies ever made.

Thanks for the info! This guy seems to have been a real life superhero. I guess we're so conditioned to question and scoff at anything that seems far-fetched or beyond reality in cinema, which is funny since reality can be more bizarre than fiction much of the time. The skeptic in me wants to think that some of Doss' story was embellished after the fact, but I wasn't there, so who knows? Either way, the guy did some incredible things, and he's now been immortalized in cinema.

I also found it a little strange that the film was made in Australia with predominantly Australian actors, even though it was a very American story. At least Mel is bringing the business down under. :)

Agree. Hope he wins best director, though, but think it'll go to Chazelle for LA La Land

Most likely. Though I could see it going to Barry Jenkins for Moonlight.

@NonSequitur said:

@Heisenberg12 said:

I

Thanks for the info! This guy seems to have been a real life superhero. I guess we're so conditioned to question and scoff at anything that seems far-fetched or beyond reality in cinema, which is funny since reality can be more bizarre than fiction much of the time. The skeptic in me wants to think that some of Doss' story was embellished after the fact, but I wasn't there, so who knows? Either way, the guy did some incredible things, and he's now been immortalized in cinema.

I also found it a little strange that the film was made in Australia with predominantly Australian actors, even though it was a very American story. At least Mel is bringing the business down under. :)

Agree. Hope he wins best director, though, but think it'll go to Chazelle for LA La Land

Most likely. Though I could see it going to Barry Jenkins for Moonlight.

Agree. Also, if you read the story or better yet view the documentary, which is really good and won awards-The Conscientious Objector-, it paints the picture even clearer. That's what amazes me about the film- stuff is hard to believe and I've seen people question some of the parts of it, but they really are true. It's hard to believe.

There's even a part where a Japanese soldier who fought in the battle and survived said he had Doss in his sights and lined up for the kill while he was lowering one of the guys off of the Ridge but his gun actually jammed and he couldn't fire the shot.

Also, that rope ladder actually was real too, and remarkably it was Desmond who was one of the two guys in the unit who had to climb up the ladder onto the ridge to place it there at the real threat of Japanese fire. And when he got up there onto the Ridge to secure that large rope ladder, he shouldn't have done it, but he stood up, making himself a target for the Japanese (this is where the online photo comes from of him up there), but remarkably he wasn't hit. His fellow teammates down below were yelling to him to stay down because he was supposed to stay in a crawl while putting that net up.

Also, that ledge was in fact 300 feet high. I saw and heard people criticizing the height of that, but the documentary makes clear it was 300 feet up at spots, and it's at least a hundred it looks like in the better photos you see in the documentary.

In addition, more on the prayer scene- that really happened and the commander was getting pissed because they were supposed to get started several minutes ago and were running behind. They were low on men and reinforcements and running out of time so the commanders called for an exceptionally strong offensive to try to put an end to it. But on that day, that was the day the allied forces finally secured the ridge (pretty sure it was the 7th attempt over a 10-12 day period). Prior to that, they had been blown back every time. So it was that same day they finally secured the Ridge and won the battle.

The Japanese would actually purposely allow the units to climb up on top of the Ridge in those large clusters so they could have them all lined up for mass slaughter as they were deeply hidden throughout the terrain they had been living in for years. That's why they allowed the forces to get in position first- it made them all clustered up and easier to get them in large numbers.

Some of the vets who were still alive at the time of the documentary recalled being hidden in the rocks and trenches, or behind trees the night Desmond performed his act. They said they were scared shit, and all of a sudden they would actually see and witness Doss running out there deep into enemy fire and enemy territory capturing wounded victims and dragging them back to safety.

The soldiers down below as he lowered the wounded said that it's amazing he didn't fall off the ledge, which would have killed him. They witnessed him lowering people on the ledge through the night and said he could have been pulled over the side of it too because of the weight of the soldiers, and some of them were lowered on stretchers.

He saved an average of 6 wounded men an hour over 12 hours. That's an average of 1 every ten minutes. He sometimes lowered two at a time.

As for Australia, yes, he only had a $40 million budget for this film (compare that with 1996' Braveheart- $70 million)-its an indie, so Australia was the key to getting it made within budget. They filmed it in New South Wales.

I really recommend viewing the documentary. It's really good- The Conscientious Objector. It's on YouTube for free, and one of the threads on here, the op posted the link.

I'm really regretting not seeing it on the big screen, i've heard nothing but fantastic feedback. I hope they release it again for at least a week.