The madness and insanity inside us, on screen

Rating: 8/10 (4 January 2002)

Movie visuals are something of an elusive art. Sometimes you see them sometimes you don't. In this movie, I don't really see much. But I guess when the movie was made (1979) it was on a class of its own.
It is about Lt. Willard's (Sheen) hunt for the mysterious renegade Special Forces officer Col. Kurtz (Brando). The journey that Willard had to trek was an arduous and dangerous one. And very mental too. As the journey to Kurtz got closer, the more we can see what kind of madness reside in him (Kurtz). And it all ends in a very satisfying finale.
This is one of those movies that portrays war in its true colors. Black, that is. The blackest black that creeps every soldiers' footsteps, ready to take them over once they cross their own respective limits. We all have limits, different only in terms of threshold.
I wasn't even born when the Vietnam war was waged. But after seeing this movie, I had some perspective of the mental ordeal that each soldier had to put up to.
Brando's character Kurtz is brilliant, so brilliant that he lost his sanity when witnessing the violence of the Vietcong. Sheen's character Willard was a man that had almost gone insane, but in carrying this mission he learned about what is up over there, over his mental threshold that he almost crossed, and decided not to.
Good performance by both Brando and Sheen. The supporting cast were also terrific. The 'Chef' character was super, 'Lance' and 'Clean' was good too. The Air Cavalry commander superbly played by Duvall was really psycho, waging war and surfing at the same time.
As for the music it adds to the atmosphere, but not by much.
In the end you will have seen a good movie, and if you haven't it's highly recommended that you see it. Two thumbs up!