The Greatest War Film Ever Made

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2011)

Apocalypse Now is a war film set during the Vietnam War.The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard,played by Martin Sheen,of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz,portrayed excellently by acting genius,Marlon Brando.Apart from the two actors,it also features Robert Duvall,Laurence Fishburne,Dennis Hopper,Harrison Ford,Frederic Forrest,Sam Bottoms and Albert Hall.The movie was co-written together with John Milius,produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness to depict the war as a descent into primal madness. Capt. Willard,already on the edge,is assigned to find and deal with AWOL Col. Kurtz,who rumored to have set himself up in the Cambodian jungle as a local, lethal godhead. Along the way Willard encounters different personalities such as napalm and Wagner fan Col. Kilgore, draftees who prefer to surf and do drugs, a USO Playboy Bunny show turned into a riot by the raucous soldiers, and a jumpy photographer telling wild, reverent tales about Kurtz. By the time Willard sees the heads mounted on stakes near Kurtz's compound, he knows Kurtz has gone over the deep end, but it is uncertain whether Willard himself now agrees with Kurtz's insane dictum to "Drop the Bomb. Exterminate them all."
This film is the greatest Vietnam War film ever made especially when it presented the concept that war is hell and madness.Also,it only tells the viewer that nobody is right and only dead bodies are the ones left.Aside from dead bodies,it also portrays how men are physically and psychologically decapitated by it.Apart from the theme and the message presented,the film also has a great cast that delivers a powerful performance and it rises to the occasion of elevating the movie to one of the best films ever made.Marlon Brando as usual delivers in his role that as always proves that he is the best actor that ever lived in the world.While Martin Sheen proves credible as the lead protagonist.The actors involved makes it compelling that it shocks the audience to the fullest about the realism brought about by destruction of war and Coppola's direction does that through audio and visual means.And most of all,this is a must-see film not for everyone to fully realize that nothing good is brought about by war.In summary,Apocalypse Now is truly a masterpiece.