After 10 years in Director Jail for reasons having nothing to do with filmmaking, Oscar winning director Mel Gibson returns with Hacksaw Ridge, a rousing WWII drama that is not for the faint of heart.

Billed upfront as "a true story," throwing the wishy-washy "based on/inspired by" to the wind, Hacksaw Ridge stars Andrew Garfield as Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector (though he'd prefer "conscientious cooperator") who refused to carry a gun into the hell that was the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

The film opens 16 years earlier in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where Desmond's alcoholic father (Hugo Weaving) is a military veteran who's wracked with survivor's guilt and takes it out on his family. Rather than pull his two boys apart when they fight, he watches them go at it, and a close call nearly has tragic consequences. "Murder is the worst sin of all," according to Desmond's mother (Rachel Griffiths), so after nearly killing his brother, Desmond swears off violence.

Years later, when a now-grown Desmond helps save a boy pinned beneath a car, he rushes to the local emergency room where he's simultaneously introduced to both the beauty of love and the horror of war. The ER is brimming with injured soldiers, not to mention nurses such as Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer).

As Desmond donates blood, he expresses fascination with the scene before him, and Dorothy encourages his curiosity in medicine by loaning him a book. She quickly become Doss' fiancee in what serves as a somewhat overlong prelude to war — which is what the audience has really come to see.

However, it's the hospital scene's dual purpose that demonstrates the script's lean efficiency, killing two birds with one stone by introducing Desmond's love interest in the midst of his origin story as an Army medic.

After the obligatory scene where Desmond tells his parents that he's going to war because he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he stood by and watched others fight for him, it's off to boot camp. That's where we meet all the guys in his platoon and their drill sergeant (Vince Vaughn), who gives them colorful nicknames like "Ghoul," "Private Idiot," "Chief," and for Doss, "Cornstalk" on account of how skinny he is. Vaughn delivers his best performance in years, clearly relishing the opportunity to do his own foul-mouthed take on R. Lee Ermey's memorable character in Full Metal Jacket.

While Doss excels during basic training, the Seventh-day Adventist refuses to touch a rifle on religious grounds. This doesn't go over so well with his comrades and their Captain (Sam Worthington), who need to be able to count on him in battle. Doss is beaten, bullied and sent to the Army shrink to prove he's of sound mind, since his commander thinks he's crazy not to carry a gun, but he's ultimately approved for service thanks to his father's old military connections.

From there, it's off to the front lines on Hacksaw Ridge, where Gibson indulges his fetish for violence. Believe me, it's no surprise that this super-gory film hails from the director of Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto, and I'm not just talking about its religious overtones.

The first battle scene is a 12-minute hail of bullets. Beyond the standard blood and guts, there are countless shots of rats eating their way through bodies. Desmond's hands are torn to shreds by the rope he uses to lower his wounded comrades (and a few enemies!) off the ridge, and there's even a scene of a man committing Seppuku, the Japanese suicide ritual.

It's all a bit much and comes to be rather numbing, but ultimately you forgive Gibson for his ghoulish indulgences because the battle scenes are beautifully photographed and the ensemble cast rises to the occasion.

Garfield's soft Southern accent may throw you off the scent, but he's in Beast Mode here as a brave angel of the battlefield, carrying men twice his size to safety. We may have watched Garfield graduate high school just two years ago in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but this is a big boy performance — excuse me, a capital-M "Man" performance — and one that showcases the actor's versatility.

There's also something notably earnest and old-fashioned about Hacksaw Ridge, which is more wholesome than edgy. Hollywood has been trying to tell Doss' story for decades, so it's appropriate that this feels like the kind of traditional war movie that might've been made decades ago. That's not say that Gibson plays it safe — though Doss is never faced with the difficult choice of having to pick up a gun to save himself or someone else — but it definitely feels like a throwback.

Still, at a time when movie theaters are saturated with superheroes, Hacksaw Ridge serves as a refreshing reminder that true heroes exist. When everyone retreated from the horrors of war, Doss ran into battle, proving everyone wrong about the strength of his character. He eventually carried 75 men to safety, winning the Medal of Honor for courage under fire.

What Doss accomplished up on that ridge was nothing short of a miracle, and in keeping with that, he made sure to give God all the credit. "Please God, help me get one more," Doss says in both the film and a moving pre-credits interview with the man himself, filmed before his death in 2006. You can almost hear Gibson, a hardcore Catholic, saying the same thing in search of a second chance in Hollywood.

You may not like what you've heard out of Mel Gibson (as a Jew, I certainly didn't), but if you can put his personal problems aside, there's no denying his talent as a filmmaker. If Doss could extend compassion to his enemies, Hollywood (and critics) should forgive Gibson and judge his work on its own merits, not the drunken ramblings of his past.