Never seen anything like this before.

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2015)

This movie is a complete mindf*ck. From the opening scene, with the takes of helicopters and Vietnamese jungle and Captain Willard in a hotel room, all with some background, intense, progressive rock music, you know you are not going to watch an ordinary movie. This is something special, this plays with your mind.
Scene after scene, the movie keeps getting weirder, but it's such a slippery slope up until the end that you don't even realize that what you are watching is completely bizarre. From the beginning, Coppola sets the rules of the game and makes the public abide to them. And once you're deep down in the movie, there's no way out. This is not an ordinary Vietnam War movie, yet in its insanity and surrealism there's no other movie that depicts the cruelty and madness of war so well. Coppola makes no effort in trying to show a realistic Vietnam War, but because of that is that no other director has fully apprehended the meaning of war so well. To understand the traumas that war veterans go through, it is not enough with just showing a lot of cruel scenes, blood and friends and foes dying, you need to go beyond reality, you need to grasp the subconscious part of it. And Coppola does it terrificly.
Music deserves a special mention. A big part of the state in mind in which Coppola puts you in is because of the amazing soundtrack. I had never seen another movie with such a good use of sound effects and music in order to convey the desired message.
I didn't really know what to expect of this movie before seeing it. I only knew is about Vietnam. I really did not expect this movie to have the effect it had on me. Needless to say, this movie is a must- see.