{"id":7260,"date":"2016-11-04T09:12:40","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T13:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=7260"},"modified":"2016-11-04T09:12:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T13:12:40","slug":"mel-gibsons-makes-triumphant-directorial-return-hacksaw-ridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/11\/mel-gibsons-makes-triumphant-directorial-return-hacksaw-ridge.html","title":{"rendered":"Mel Gibson&#8217;s makes triumphant directorial return in &#8220;Hacksaw Ridge&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9BqgHYLvHIE<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Hacksaw Ridge<\/em> open nationwide in theaters today (11\/4).<br \/>\nCast:<\/strong> Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths, Hugo Weaving<br \/>\n<strong>Directed by: <\/strong>Mel Gibson<br \/>\n<strong>Written by: <\/strong>Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkken<\/p>\n<p>ON Wednesday night, prior to a screening of the film, director Mel Gibson and the film&#8217;s co-screenwriter Robert Schenkken appeared together at <a href=\"http:\/\/sheencenter.org\/\">New York&#8217;s Sheen Center for Thought &amp; Culture<\/a> for a Q&amp;A conducted by the center&#8217;s film and TV director David DiCerto. The topic: The challenge of turning the incredible true story of Desmond T. Doss into a credible movie. Doss, in case you don&#8217;t already know, was a WWII Army medic who, as a Christian pacifist, refused to even touch a gun. Labeled by some as either crazy or a coward, he would go to save several soldiers&#8217; lives during\u00a0 the bloody Battle of Okinawa and to become America&#8217;s first conscientious objector to be awarded with a Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n<p>Gibson said he wanted to the film to be both a tribute to Doss&#8217; brave commitment to his faith and to the courage and dedication of all of America&#8217;s combat veterans (some of whom were in the audience).<\/p>\n<p>From watching the film, I can tell you that, IMHO, he succeeded in that goal. Under Gibson&#8217;s masterful direction (whatever your opinion of him, the guy is a first-rate storyteller), former Amazing <em>Spider-Man<\/em> Andrew Garfield turns in a terrific performance as the amazingly humane Doss. The rest of the cast is also effective, especially Hugo Weaving as Doss&#8217; alcoholic father and Vince Vaughn is but the tough-as-nails but, ultimately, Sgt. Howell. Teresa Palmer and Rachel Griffiths are also appealing as, respectively, the devoted women in Doss&#8217; life, respectively his girlfriend (later his wife) and mother.<\/p>\n<p>As for the script, it effectively and convincingly portrays Doss faith without coming off like a &#8220;faith film.&#8221; This is, indeed, a movie for anyone who likes good movies about interesting characters worth caring about.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that <em>Hacksaw Ridge<\/em> is <strong>awesome and highly-recommended<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em>John W. Kennedy is a writer\/development consultant specializing in teleplays, screenplays and novelizations<\/em>. He can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:john@jwkmedia.com\">john@jwkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em><strong>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9BqgHYLvHIE Hacksaw Ridge open nationwide in theaters today (11\/4). Cast: Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths, Hugo Weaving Directed by: Mel Gibson Written by: Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkken ON Wednesday night, prior to a screening of the film, director&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9142,9146,9138,9139,9141,9145,267,9140,9144,9147,7055,9143,823],"class_list":["post-7260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-andrew-garfield","tag-andrew-knight","tag-david-dicerto","tag-desmond-t-doss","tag-hacksaw-ridge","tag-hugo-weaving","tag-mel-gibson","tag-new-yorks-sheen-center-for-thought-culture","tag-rachel-griffiths","tag-robert-schenkken","tag-sam-worthington","tag-teresa-palmer","tag-vince-vaughn"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mel Gibson&#039;s makes triumphant directorial return in &quot;Hacksaw Ridge&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/11\/mel-gibsons-makes-triumphant-directorial-return-hacksaw-ridge.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mel Gibson&#039;s makes triumphant directorial return in &quot;Hacksaw Ridge&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9BqgHYLvHIE Hacksaw Ridge open nationwide in theaters today (11\/4). Cast: Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths, Hugo Weaving Directed by: Mel Gibson Written by: Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkken ON Wednesday night, prior to a screening of the film, director&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/11\/mel-gibsons-makes-triumphant-directorial-return-hacksaw-ridge.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-04T13:12:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. 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Cast: Andrew Garfield, Teresa Palmer, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths, Hugo Weaving Directed by: Mel Gibson Written by: Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkken ON Wednesday night, prior to a screening of the film, director&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2016\/11\/mel-gibsons-makes-triumphant-directorial-return-hacksaw-ridge.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2016-11-04T13:12:40+00:00","author":"John W. 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Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7260"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7264,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions\/7264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}