DEMAND Redux Version

Rating: 8/10 (19 August 2006)

Like its basis, Jospeh Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", "Apocalypse Now" isn't so much a story as an experience. In a way similar to Kubrick's masterpiece, "2001", this movie is a sensory experience that is, at once, a metaphor for the American (and French) experiences in Vietnam, and an examination of men in the most extreme human experience: war. As Nietzsche wrote: when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you. And America, like Coppola's hero, is never the same again.
The "Redux" version's added footage fleshes out both the metaphor and the film in a way that makes for a much more satisfying cinematic experience. The protagonists' stay with the French family heightens both the insanity and intensity of the movie's denouement and very much belongs in the film.
Ultimately, however, like the Vietnam-era itself, the movie lacks coherence. As in the "Godfather, Part II," Coppola disregards traditional cinematic structure. Thirty-three years after American military involvement in Vietnam came to end, the country is still as divided as ever. Thus it is little wonder that reactions to this movie will vary as much as the individual's opinions, and experiences, of that tragic, and seemingly interminable, era in American history.
The film is also unique for the roster of actors who would later become superstars. It also noteworthy for being Marlon Brando's swan song; after "Apocalypse" his sad decline into overpaid cameos, depression, obesity and family tragedy would begin.
Coppola's three masterpieces, "The Godfather," "The Godfather, Part II," and "Apocalypse Now" all examine the nature of evil, especially that of an essentially good man losing himself in evil. Without the razorsharp plotting, brilliant character development of the Godfather films, "Apocalypse Now" is a chaotic miasma lacking nearly all of the qualities that made the Coreleone epic the greatest family story in film history. Despite its defects, which are manifold, "Apocalypse" is utterly unforgettable.