The film recounts the heroism of Desmond T. Doss, an army
medic who refused to bear arms in World War Two and received the
highest U.S. military honor for saving 75 of his comrades.
"You'd have to be made of stone to not respond to the true story
of who this man was and what he did," Gibson said at the film's
Hollywood premiere.
The film starts with a love story set in Virginia's Blue Ridge
Mountains and eventually moves to the Battle of Okinawa in the
Pacific, where Doss, played by Andrew Garfield, must pick his
way through corpses and dismembered limbs to bring his comrades
to safety.
Doss' acts were "beyond heroic" and "transcendent", said
Garfield, who previously played the superhero Spider-Man.
"It's an impossible thing to live up to but I can try to capture
his essence," added Garfield, who said he cried when he first
read the screenplay.
"Hacksaw Ridge", set for release in the United States on Nov 4,
could put Gibson back in the spotlight.
Gibson won acclaim after directing box office hits such as Oscar
winner "Braveheart" and "The Passion of the Christ".
However, in 2006 he was arrested for drunk driving and
unleashing an anti-Semitic tirade, and in 2010 he was recorded
using racist slurs while verbally sparring with then girlfriend
Oksana Grigorieva.
(Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Karishma Singh
Editing by Darren Schuettler)
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