Crisp Criticism - "Hacksaw Ridge", "The Light Between Oceans", "American Honey"

by

Julien Faddoul

Hacksaw Ridge *

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Clumsy, by-the-numbers war film based on fact that administers almost every piece of WWII didacticism one can imagine. Only in its second half does it obtain any energy, in which its director flaunts the kind of blood and guts that he adores so much.

d – Mel Gibson

w – Andrew Knight, Robert Schenkkan

ph – Simon Duggan

pd – Barry Robinson

m – Rupert Gregson-Williams

ed – John Gilbert

cos – Lizzy Gardiner

p – Terry Benedict, Paul Currie, Bruce Davey, William D. Johnson, Bill Mechanic, Brian Oliver, David Permut, Tyler Thompson

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Teresa Palmer, Sam Worthington, Rachel Griffiths, Matthew Nable Luke Bracey Hugo Weaving Richard Roxburgh Nathaniel Buzolic Ryan Corr Goran D. Kleut Firass Dirani

The Light Between Oceans *

A lighthouse keeper and his wife living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from an adrift rowboat.

Well-crafted but filled with plausibility issues that don’t help when such a film is trying to be as earnest as this one. Just because the emotions are intense, doesn’t make them legitimate. A noble failure.

wd – Derek Cianfrance   (Based on the Novel by ML Stedman)

ph – Adam Arkapaw

pd – Karen Murphy

m – Alexandre Desplat

ed – Jim Helton, Ron Patane

cos – Erin Benach

p – David Heyman, Jeffrey Clifford

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, Caren Pistorius, Florence Clery, Anthony Hayes, Emily Barclay, Leon Ford

American Honey **

A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

Roaming, overlong plummet into the unpleasantness of American delinquency by Arnold, who here utilizes her regular form of non-professional actors and heavy improvisation. No real modicum of fulfillment is reached by any of the characters, though it is intriguing to watch them try; certain sequences are compelling but she loses grasp of the film in its third hour.

wd – Andrea Arnold

ph – Robbie Ryan

pd – Kelly McGehee

ed – Joe Bini

cos – Alex Bovaird

p – Thomas Benski, Lars Knudsen, Lucas Ochoa, Pouya Shahbazian, Jay Van Hoy, Alice Weinberg

Cast: Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough, Raymond Coalson, Chad Cox, Veronica Ezell, Arielle Holmes, Garry Howell, Crystal Ice, McCaul Lombardi, Shawna Rae Moseley, Dakota Powers, Isaiah Stone, Kenneth Kory Tucker, Chris Wright, Will Patton, Sam Williamson, Bruce Gregory, Tyler Forke, Chris Bylsma, Andrea Fantauzzi, Daran Shinn, Laura Kirk