A brave fantasy but not the greatest Vietnam war movie for sure

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2015)

If you want a good movie about the Vietnam War watch Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth for the effect on the Vietnamese, watch Casualties of War for war crimes on the Vietnamese, or Platoon, Full Metal Jacket or Deer Hunter for the effect on the soldiers. For the impact of the War on the Cambodians, watch The Killing Fields. Apocalypse now is not mainly about the Vietnamese or Cambodians even though it is set there. It is a fictional dark fantasy allegorical tale inspired by Conrad about the ugliness of the Vietnam war and what it did to the soldiers fighting it. It's brave for the time, but it's by no means the greatest of the Vietnam War movies because it is so unreal.
In 1979 when this was released, the Vietnam war hadn't been over that long. This movie was an anti war statement showing the effect of the war on soldiers. Contrasting the ugly behavior of the soldiers fire bombing peaceful villages to Wagner and killing civilian fishermen and women. The ugly Playboy entertainment that gets out of hand shows the soldiers at their most base and primal. Finally holed up in a Cambodian temple they resort to some pagan mass murdering decapitating barbaric tribal society. Martin Sheen is good. Look out for young Lawrence Fishburne and Harrison Ford. But Marlon Brando is too overweight to have been a military man.
Brave, unreal and not the greatest.