A bold audacious masterstroke that should dare Hollywood to be better than it is

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2015)

Apocalypse Now is a bold, audacious directorial masterstroke that dares Hollywood to be better than it is, and for that it deserves high praise. The movie that almost claimed the life of both Martin Sheen and Francis Ford Coppola himself is absolutely stunning to behold. If this movie came out in present day, it'd be shot almost entirely with special effects rater than on location, and not only would we have a less genuine film, we'd miss one of the greatest movie-making ordeals in the history of Hollywood.
Coppola and team chose to adapt Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness into a modern day setting. Let's just pause and ruminate on the novelty of that approach. Its absolutely glorious. I read Heart of Darkness a number of years ago (not very well) but I became more aware of its themes when I played Spec Ops: The Line. Seeing those themes of horror and darkness transplanted is among the boldest filmmaking projects ever brought to cinema. Vietnam may just be the best setting ever for this hellish story.
Coppola's direction of Vietnam is unlike anything I've ever seen. I've loved Vietnam war films like Full Metal Jacket, but not until now have I ever appreciated the horror of the fighting. As Captain Willard says, the only out for Viet Cong soldiers is death or victory, and Coppola shows us this in heavy but not heavy-handed ways. A battle over a bridge, with Americans fighting without a CO and for no reason other than that's what they do, is the most reflective. Without exposition, we know that Charlie will never stop until every American is dead. Unlike conventional wars, they aren't going to retreat to their base for the night. They have no base. Its victory or death, anything else is just procedural. As Willard and his team wind their way up the river, the glorious Oscar-winning cinematography bathes Vietnam in red, the colour of hell.
If there's one scene that screams masterpiece, its the dawn attack sequence. This is a masterpiece of sound, camera-work, visuals, scripting - the lot. The iconic blasting of Ride of the Valkyries while helicopters (which would have been real in 1970s!) swoop over this village and kill everything without asking questions is incredible. Helicopters explode, and bullets seem to ceaselessly rain out from the surrounding jungle. We never see where they are, and so we never let our guard down. I also have to give props to the almost sadistic death scene of Mr. Clean, with Chief sobbing over Clean's blood soaked corpse while a message from Clean's mother plays in the background. Hope has no place in hell.
Martin Sheen plays Willard in a very subtle performance. He flexes his physical presence enough times so we know he's a soldier to be reckoned with, but for the most part he's withdrawn and haunted. His single-minded obsession with the mission is his only defining characteristic- the war has taken all else. The rest of the cast all do solid work but by far the most unforgettable performance is Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore. A hard soldier if there ever was one, Kilgore subscribes to the delusions of victory and struts around like a GI Joe, ordering his men to duck whenever an explosion is imminent, but remains upright himself. His obsession with surfing is a great character trait, especially his blunt "surf or fight" instructions to one of Willard's men.
Apocalypse Now comes a bit off the rails with the introduction of Brando as Kurtz. While he cuts an imposing figure and has impeccable delivery, Brando's refusal to learn Coppola's screenplay and instead improvise all of his lines makes the Kurtz-Willard interactions a little too subjective and not nearly as engaging as the rest of the film. While Apocalypse Now never lets up its glorious look, the final half an hour or so was nowhere near as enthralling.
I'm very glad I watched Apocalypse Now. It deserves to be seen just to be believed. Its just short of a masterpiece, but I'm going to check out Hearts of Darkness so I can learn more about the ordeal that was the process. Just as Willard had no idea what would happen when he reached Kurtz, Coppola had no idea what would happen when he reached his end game.