Psycho (Gus Van Sant, 1998)

Vince Vaughn in Psycho

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, Robert Forster, Philip Baker Hall, Anne Haney, Chad Everett, Rance Howard, Rita Wilson, James Remar, James Le Gros. Screenplay: James Sefano, based on a novel by Robert Bloch. Cinematography: Christopher Doyle. Production design: Tom Foden. Film editing: Amy E. Duddleston. Music: Bernard Herrmann. 

Accepting the role of Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant's remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was an act that took chutzpah or hubris or something. There are few performances more definitive than Anthony Perkins in the role in the 1960 film. It's much easier to accept some of the actors who replace the originals: Viggo Mortensen is a far more capable actor than John Gavin, and he gives the role of Sam Loomis personality. Julianne Moore is tougher and feistier than Vera Miles as Lila Crane. And even Anne Heche is acceptable as Marion Crane, though lacking the touch of glamour -- and the shock of her early departure from the movie -- that made Janet Leigh iconic in the role. Which is just to say that Van Sant's version is an experiment that never justifies itself: Can a nearly shot-for-shot re-creation of a classic film succeed as its own movie? It didn't, of course, meeting critical scorn and audience indifference. The incidental departures from the Hitchcock version, the updatings to meet contemporary expectations are glaringly irrelevant: San is naked in the bedroom scene at the beginning; Norman masturbates when he looks at Marion through the peephole; we see the wounds inflicted by Mother and Marion's nude buttocks in the shower scene. Even the rescoring of Bernard Herrmann's music by Danny Elfman feels less effective in the new context. As so often with remakes, we come to see what made the original so brilliant. 

Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson, 2016)

Andrew Garfield in Hacksaw Ridge

Desmond Doss: Andrew Garfield
Sgt. Howell: Vince Vaughn
Capt. Jack Glover: Sam Worthington
Smitty Ryker: Luke Bracey
Tom Doss: Hugo Weaving
Dorothy Schutte: Teresa Palmer
Bertha Doss: Rachel Griffiths
Lt. Manville: Ryan Corr
Col. Stelzer: Richard Roxburgh
Milt "Hollywood" Zane: Luke Pegler

Director: Mel Gibson
Screenplay: Robert Schenkkan, Andrew Knight
Cinematography: Simon Duggan
Production design: Barry Robison
Film editing: John Gilbert
Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams

Hacksaw Ridge doesn't shy away from biopic or war-movie clichés, it embraces them: There's on the one hand the familiar bullying sergeant, and on the other the typical shy romance. But it succeeds in being a well-made action movie, after spending a little too much time on the shy romance and other bits of Appalachian backgrounding for the character of Desmond Doss, a real person who was both a conscientious objector and a Medal of Honor winner for his heroism as a medic during the Battle of Okinawa. To play Doss, the movie needed the equivalent of a young James Stewart or Gary Cooper, and found him in Garfield, who received a best actor Oscar nomination. The movie also provided a measure of redemption for its director, Mel Gibson, who had been persona non grata in Hollywood after a 2006 drunk-driving arrest in which he made antisemitic remarks to the arresting officer, a capper on a string of homophobic and extreme right-wing statements he had reportedly made over the years. He was nominated for best director for Hacksaw Ridge, and the film was also up for best picture and for film editing and two sound awards. It won for film editing and sound mixing. Gibson remains something of a problematic figure in the industry, and has yet to find a followup in his would-be comeback. Hacksaw Ridge demonstrates some of his known flaws, such as his violent delight in mayhem and bloodshed, and it's a bit heavy-handed in its endorsement of Doss's simple (not to say simple-minded) faith, but it provides some very old-fashioned movie gratifications.