Apocalypse Now: My Review

Rating: 5/10 (20 June 2013)

The film Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola tells the story of a Captain in the United States Army that has been given a classified assignment to terminate (with extreme prejudice) a Colonel that has gone rogue. The film is driven by Martin Sheen playing the above Captain Willard who in attempting to carry out his orders gives the audience a front row seat to what the landscape of Vietnam had been like for the souls that were a part of the conflict. Supporting Sheen in the movie was Marlon Brando, an eccentric Dennis Hopper, a young Lawrence Fishburne, and Robert Duvall (who provided the often quoted line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"). There was also a brief role in the beginning of the film by Harrison Ford whose name in the film is homage to George Lucas who helped with the script of the film.
The theme of the film focuses on the horrors of war and how conflicts can change a person, from how they think to how they behave. As many other films have shown in terms of warfare (Platoon, Black Hawk Down, and Brothers, among others) the reasons for the fighting is sometimes not cut and dry and the results or aftermath of what soldiers experience can certainly change them. Without spoiling the movie there are many instances in which the stress of fighting affects all of the characters and how they go about trying to continue on with their mission. Sheen's performance in this regard is also worth noting as through the journey of his character the ethicalness and understanding of the person he had been assigned to kill makes him question the leadership with the Army is the best, and maybe more to the point whether the conflict that they are waging so far from home is worth it. The theme however carries over throughout the film in terms of how the film was shot and the lighting being effectively utilized. Throughout the film there is darkness, shadows that hint at the conflict that the characters are engaging in and how they are shooting upon enemies that they cannot see.
The theme is also driven home through an effective soundtrack that heightens some of the most dramatic scenes in the film and also reinforces how the war and his previous assignments affected Willard and led to an internal debate over if he should actually fulfill his orders. Further the theme is central to the climax of the film as Willard ultimately carries out his mission terminating Colonel Kurtz (Brando), with Kurtz's final words being "The horrorthe horror". These words seem to speak to Willard's character as he leaves Kurtz and begins to make his way to his boat he had arrived on. Throughout the scene Willard maintains a distant look, a far away glance that through his journey and everything that he had experienced up to that point he had lost something that made him human, which was his soul and yet he still relinquished it to carry out orders given to him.
As the film fades to black, Kurtz final words are repeated as Willard and Kurtz's faces are visible on screen. The image of the two men seems to symbolize that the men are perhaps more similar than Willard would've initially wanted to believe or could hope to understand which is perhaps another horror of war, when the assignment is to kill someone that is just like yourself.