Four Years in the Making(and re-making)

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2006)

The way I am to understand it,Francis Ford Coppola got the go-ahead to film this re-adaptation(or re-envisioning)of Joseph Conrad's novella in 1974 and started filming it in 1975 or 1976.
Almost four years,plenty of re-shooting,a near feud with Universal over the production and one heart attack(Martin Sheen's)later and the film finally got released in 1980. Good reviews couldn't save it from being a very modest producer at the Box Office,but cable,VHS,DVD rentals have garnered it a cult following(not to mention a re-released,uncut edition)and I COMPLETELY understand why.
The story of Colonel Ben Willard(Sheen,looking every bit haggard and sickly),a mentally on-the-edge officer who is dispatched to eliminate"with extreme prejudice" a rogue officer named Kurtz(Marlon Brando,bloated,dazed and foreboding.More of a reflection of the persona he'd be remembered for now than he was pre-Godfather)is one that seems to be more focused on the violent nightmare that was Vietnam than the actual mission itself. Along the river(the Mekong?),Willard and his small crew(which included Frederic Forrest and an under-aged Laurence Fishburne!)encounter various traps and locals,all driving them slowly to wits end themselves. By the time Willard reaches his intended destination,most of his squad is decimated and what awaits is a primitive society of "natives" who all nearly worship Kurtz,including a ranting photojournalist(a very memorable,and probably very tweeky,Dennis Hopper).
This film is strictly visceral(as Coppola rightly intended),but it works brilliantly at it. I haven't seen much of the Redux version,but what I have seen tells me it seems to add to the emotional range of this film. With a small cameo from a then-unknown Harrison Ford(as a dispatch Intelligence officer)and a somewhat larger cameo by Robert Duvall(as a nearly mythical gunnery Sargent),this film's images,sound and economy of lines allows the viewer to get the same unpurgeable,acrid and vivid experience of the madness that can be found IN war(as opposed to the madness of it). A must see for any film fan!