"He's out there operating with no decent restraint"

Rating: 10/10 (4 December 2010)

I've almost worn out my copy of Apocalypse Now. I'm proof of the theory of Poor-Cheap-Alternative Existence, where I will buy tobacco or alcohol instead of a nice copy of one of my favorite movies. So yesterday, I got The Complete Dossiere from a mall. Contains the original film as well as AN Redux. So on with my review of maybe the greatest war film made for kids under 60 and over. Who wish that they are kids. In the movie, Dennis Hopper as the photojournalist(no name given), is as spaced out as Lance On The Forward Fifties. Lance has dropped acid during the long odyssey. The more the journalist talks about dialectics and different theories, it becomes quite clear the guy is "out there somewhere". But Colonel Kurtz is a little different in his mental state after losing it. The Colonel is dangerous. He has to be.. he has had too much training in the art of military strategics and tactical movement. I thought at one time what would happen if Willard had tried to bring the Colonel back to the U.S. Not a good idea. Throughout the trip to where Kurtz' encampment was, Captain Willard kept thinking the same way. This isn't right, he thought. Did not make any sense. The dossier did not describe a Colonel who was on his second foray into Southeast Asia, and had shown his skills as a commander. Kurtz was taking situations into his own hands, I believe that is what bothered the generals. Yet Kurtz, the captain found later, was going over the line, not operating within the restraint of HQ or within the limits of good reason.
The photojournalist said to Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, "you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him." He was right. Willard listened and listened, and the things the Colonel said verified what Willard had been told was a foregone conclusion at the beginning of his journey to Cambodia.