Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen between animal and god

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2012)

With "Apocalypse Now" Francis Ford Coppola transfers Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" tale into the 20th century and makes it part of the horrors of the Vietnam war. The result is a beautifully shot, highly suspenseful and entertaining movie, which can be labeled THE war movie with all bells and whistles in a scope rarely seen before in similar productions. Staggering cinematography, an excellent script, a crisp and vivid tapestry of sound and musical ambiance, the perfect use of location and of course the cast - with bit players like Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne or Harrison Ford -, all contribute to a cinematic event of the grand scale.
Most remarkable of course are the performances of the two main characters - for one protagonist Martin Sheen (who plays Captain Willard) and the one he's searching for deep in the Cambodian jungles, the decorated US commander gone mad, Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). The build-up to the encounter alone already keeps the viewer on the edge of the seat, and the pay-off is condensed in the intense and unnerving final minutes of the film. While we get there more and more questions are raised about the nature of the war that is being fought, as madness isn't only waiting on that other end of the journey, but becomes a principle in itself on the way - thus questioning the mission, the causes and the means: Man's position between animal and god is uncertain, but as self-assigned master over life and death his decline into madness only seems like a natural reaction...