Doublej20005

The first film from this director, Searching, is one of my favourite thrillers of all time, because it uses its premise to brilliant effect, and has a mystery that kept me completely engrossed from start to finish. Run isn't quite as good as that, but it is still a very stellar second feature. Sarah Paulson is definitely good, but it's Kiera Allen who is the real star here, carrying scenes based off of her performance alone. The mystery is admittedly simple, but it's the tense direction that carries this to the finish line, and kept me gripped from start to finish. The story develops really well, and the structure of having the flashback scene at the beginning is fantastic, and sets up the mystery brilliantly. The climax was satisfying and overall the film is just a great time. It is somewhat predictable, but the execution really stuck the landing, and kept the film feeling tense and exciting throughout. Overall, I thought this was a great film, and I can't wait to see what Aneesh Chaganty does next.

I generally love war films, but I couldn't help but be at least a bit disappointed with this. The first half an hour was a bit boring at times, and didn't feel necessary to the rest of the film. I like the idea of a film about a pacifist in war, and that motivation is set up well within Doss at the beginning. The training stuff is fairly entertaining, but the film doesn't really pick up until they get to Hacksaw Ridge. That part is genuinely really uplifting, if a bit over the top at times. Garfield was phenomenal, Gibson's direction was very strong and the production design really stood out as detailed to me, particularly during the war scenes. For a film about a pacifist, some of the violence was way too over the top in my opinion, but most of it was good. I thought some of the editing was bad at points, but apparently this won Best Editing at the Oscars so what do I know. The score was good and the story of Doss is genuinely really inspirational. I think with a weaker story this would have a much lower score, as I had a lot of smaller issues with the film that decreased my overall enjoyment of it. Overall, it's still a good film, but it's one of the weaker war films I've seen.

Really liked this film! There were a couple of elements that annoyed me - the score was genuinely obnoxious, and some of the humour was a bit hit or miss at times, but it works because of the well developed characters, strong direction and a fantastic third act, which nails the conclusion of the character arcs and wraps up the story really well. The ensemble cast is great, particularly Sam Rockwell, and the fast pacing really helped to keep me engaged. The tone was balanced extremely well, with the dramatic moments never feeling out of place. Whilst I did say that some of the humour fell flat, some of it definitely did work, and the characters were really quirky and as such enjoyable for me. The themes mostly landed and the ending was very satisfying, and boosted the score up a fair bit. Overall, it isn't flawless, but it is a lot of fun.