Perhaps the best Vietnam War film ever created

Rating: 10/10 (22 September 2017)

Apocalypse Now is a deployment to war-ridden Vietnam on acid. It's an exploration of human darkness with the faint scent of napalm in the air. A glimpse into sweltering madness only to turn around and question whether you've entered the rabbit hole yourself. When you're done watching it you'll wonder whether Francis Ford Coppola's best work was in fact behind him. Another of the greats that detailed a bloody excursion in the South Pacific; think Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter, and Platoon. However, despite being an ever-popular topic of film, Apocalypse Now presents a unique perspective on the war as it adapts a previously unrelated story.
Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent on an ill-defined mission into Cambodia to hunt down Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). A mission wrought with inefficiency and bureaucracy eventually begins to wear on Willard. Kurtz is wanted for murder, but " charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500." During Willard's painstaking trip up river he slowly discovers more about the mysterious Kurtz and the nature of this horrific war. How can you destroy and man who's already destroyed himself? To what lengths will we go to maintain sanity in an insane place? Kurtz flows with the river and sways with the jungle like an omniscient, omnipresent ghost. The familiar puttering of the boat engine is our only form of solace as the vines begin to wrap around us and the water appears to pull us upriver.
The War is put on display as a series of decisions made by four-star generals sitting in air-conditioned offices somewhere. An attempt at traditional war during exceptional circumstances. Desperate times don't call for moderate measures. Kurtz is the wild card and Willard is sent to clean up after him before he becomes a wild card himself. If the Vietnam War was an asylum, the inmates would surely be running it.
Overall, Coppola provides a thought-provoking adaptation of Heart of Darkness. The contemporary nature of the film makes it more approachable than the original story. Despite becoming somewhat of a case-study of movie production problems during filming, Apocalypse Now is undoubtedly one of the best films to come out of the 20th century. It is often the most trying times that provide the most artistic inspiration, and this film is certainly a testament to that.