The Greatest Film About Vietnam... Until the horribly woozy third act.

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2002)

The first two thirds of this movie are, quite simply, the best depiction of the Vietnam War in film. We follow Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), journeying upriver into Cambodia to assassinate the insane Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), through the proverbial Heart of Darkness, into the deepest depths of the chaos that was Nam. However, as soon as we get to the destination, the film goes completely downhill. The final hour really has little, if anything, to do with the Vietnam War. Instead, we a treated to a stoned Marlon Brando mouthing poetry and musing on terror in the midst of a tribal commune in a demolished temple, with Dennis Hopper adding his equally stoned commentary. Thus, Apocalypse Now collapses in on itself. From the interviews I have seen with him, Francis Ford Coppola has always struck me as an egomaniac, and here it shows. The scenes in Vietnam are philosophically rich, beautiful, haunting, and expressive of the strangest war of this past century. The Ride of the Valkyries helicopter attack, with a surfing-crazed Robert Duvall trying to catch a little R and R in the midst of a heated battle is still stunning and brilliant. All the characters on the boat with Willard are widely drawn, and their journey upriver into the depths of the jungle shows a vast range of the madness that plagued the war. In Cambodia, however, the artistic philosophy of the film moves so far away from the characters, that it feels like one is attending a University lecture, given, once again, by the stoned Marlon Brando. As the redux, its worth seeing, I think, but most of the scenes don't really add very much, and some (such as the FRench Plantation), feel completely out of place and really hinder the pacing of the film.