played a big role in winning World War II by enduring relentless punishment on and off the battlefield
That statement makes no sense. Did he break anything or kill anyone (that's how wars are won). Did he tour the USA as a Medal of Honor hero to raise war bonds? Doubtful, it was 1945. And it isn't a stretch to note that praising someone labeled as a CO (whether accurate or not) isn't exactly the best way to raise a fighting army, in the big scheme of thngs, even though he was a genuine hero.
turned pacifist after a near-tragic childhood accident incurred in a childhood scuffle with his older brother. So convinced that taking another man’s life was the most egregious sin in the Ten Commandments
or this:
refusing to compromise his religious principles that forbid him to bear arms.
Rex Reed is either ridiculing Doss' beliefs, or ridiculing the Ten Commandments. I don't know which -- was PFC Doss afraid of guns, traumatized by the childhood incident (as Reed says), or was he just following his religion (as Reed says -- and if so, how did the childhood incident, that I presume involved a weapon, happen? It's not clear.) Of course the Bible definitely is not pacifistic. The Macabees were the most heroic of the faithful. Come to think of it, I would love it if Mel Gibson would make a movie about them.
Rex Reed has no problem with broad generalities like "hayseed hick" but imagine if Doss were black, from the Mississippi delta -- would he have used pejoratives? NO, because that would be politically incorrect -- I'm not advocating political correctness, I'm pointing out that PC doesn't apply to "uneducated hayseed hick whites", as we just experienced (again) from Left-wing post-election analysis.
I agree, I can’t stand Reed.
I think you should watch the movie and read up on the life of Desmond Doss before you offer such a scathing review.
He spent 6 years in military hospitals after the war, losing a lung to TB and had a 100% disability. He crawled off his litter when he was being carried off the battlefield to give care to someone more severely injured. The movie doesn’t do justice to the real story.