THE GREATEST

Rating: 10/10 (27 June 2004)

The greatest war movie ever - the helicopter attack is still one of the great set pieces in cinema history, Robert Duvall with one of the most quoted lines in cinema history, and a film that captures the overriding insanity that war is propelled by and generates. Martin Sheen's performance has always been undervalued in this film - he is the heart of the movie, as he his dragged further and further into the nightmare of Vietnam - he is a professional solider, a special forces officer but even he is overwhelmed by the chaos caused by Kurtz in what was the hidden war on the Cambodian border. Sheen is a great actor and vividly portrays a character who has been finally been submerged by the horror and brutality of the American policy towards the Vietnam conflict. Brando is on a different planet, but that is the intention, given Kurtz has become completely removed mentally from the war around him.