The horror..the horror!

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2003)

APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) **** Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Federic Forrest, Dennis Hopper, Sam Bottoms, Bill Graham, Harrison Ford (cameo role). Francis Ford Coppola's epic filmmaking masterpiece of war and madness and the complicated nightmare of one's battle for sanity amidst carnage and violence sets the stage for this journey into hell's deepest waters. Sheen as a US Army captain in Vietnam out on an assigned mission to stop a lunatic fringe Green Berets colonel (Brando in easily his eeriest performance) who has become a god-like presence in a remote Cambodian village of natives. Some truly hallucinatory revelations and memorable screen images in this loosely based adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" including Duvall's nutsy colonel (nominee, Best Supporting Actor) obsessed with surfing during attack ("God I love the smell of Napalm...it's the smell of victory!") and the helicopter attack on the Viet Cong with Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" blaring on the soundtrack. Excellent use of The Doors' "The End" for the climax. Look closely for R. Lee Ermey as a chopper pilot. Best Sound Oscar and Best Cinematography (the hellish scopic vision of Vittorio Storaro).