The Movie Grows on You.

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2008)

"Apocalypse Now" is a movie that is both disturbing and entertaining. It is also a movie that is complex enough to grow on you over time. Maybe as you learn more about the history of Vietnam and the corrupt US politics that got us there, and kept us bogged down in what seemed to be the last place on earth we needed to be fighting, the insanity makes more sense.
It first seemed to me like instead of a red or blue pill, everyone in the movie was on a different pill; but they were all on something to cope with their frustrating situations. Even the tiger had an abnormal attitude. No one seemed to take the war seriously except the most insane characters, and they were now being eliminated for going rogue.
I didn't really like the movie at first, but I had a friend who seemed to have an obsession with this movie that I couldn't understand at the time.
Now I see it as a brilliant trip further and further down the river toward the insanity of corrupting absolute power, losing the boundaries set by civilization & the military code of conduct, and becoming an uncontrollable, political liability.
At the beginning, the rogue Colonel looks heroic on paper and possibly salvageable if he will just communicate and start cooperating with his commanders. Along the way you meet people who need reality checks, but still operate within acceptable boundaries based on their stressful conditions. By the end of the eventful trip down the river, everyone knows that the Colonel has become intoxicated by his isolated & admiring tribe of soldiers and natives, and has tried to play god for too long. He has become more a native tribal leader with no respect for life outside his tribe, than an Army Colonel.
He is a rogue operator who gets results, an efficient killer of the enemy; but he has gradually broken away from the chain of command. In a politically motivated military, when winning is not the goal, this is the ultimate crime - sustained independent action.
It makes you wonder how different is Colonel Kurtz from MacArthur or Patton if they were faced with the same enemies?