This Movie Isn't About Vietnam; It IS Vietnam

Rating: 9/10 (8 November 2007)

Francis Ford Coppola's extraordinary Vietnam film is deeply flawed, but in this case the flaws feel so right for the subject matter that they almost make the movie better.
This movie is a perfect marrying of source material and directorial vision. Setting Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" against the backdrop of the Vietnam jungles is brilliant, and the dark odyssey of Martin Sheen's character is so nightmarish, feverish and sweaty that this movie feels more like it IS Vietnam than merely ABOUT Vietnam.
With a number of memorable appearances, notably Robert Duvall as a war-hungry Army officer glorying in the carnage around him; Dennis Hopper as a drugged out photojournalist who's lost his mind to the jungle; and, perhaps most memorable for its pure weirdness, Marlon Brando as Kurtz, the officer who's gone missing and has fashioned himself as a dark God amongst the primitive natives.
The movie totally loses its way toward the end, but that somehow feels right.
Recommendation: Don't watch the redux version if you can avoid it. It's yet further proof that directors usually have good instincts and that what they initially cut from their movies should remain cut.
Grade: A