Apocalyse Now

Rating: 8/10 (26 June 2006)

I had seen this critically acclaimed war film maybe once or twice, but maybe I didn't pay the fullest of attention to everything or perhaps didn't get it, but I am glad I gave it another chance and can appreciate it now, from BAFTA winning, and Oscar and Golden Globe nominated director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, The Conversation, Bram Stoker's Dracula). Basically the Vietnam war shows no signs of ending, and U.S. Army Captain and special operations veteran Captain Benjamin L. Willard (BAFTA nominated Martin Sheen) has returned to Saigon and called upon by Lt. General Corman (G. D. Spradlin) and Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford), military intelligence officers, for a secret mission into the remote jungle. His orders are to follow the Nung River and find Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has gone rogue, and apparently insane practising "unsound" methods of dehumanisation, and he may have also developed a cult following from both his troops and the native people, so he is to be terminated for extreme prejudice. Willard heads down the river on a Navy patrol boat, commanded by Chief Phillips (Albert Hall) with crew members Lance B. Johnson (Sam Bottoms), Jay 'Chef' Hicks (Frederic Forrest) and Tyrone 'Clean' Miller (Laurence Fishburne), and on the journey they rendezvous Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall) who commands a squadron of armed helicopters, he agrees to escort them while the napalm airstrike attacks the locals below, while the music "Ride of the Valkyries" plays on loudspeakers. Willard and the crew continue upriver, he looks through files about Kurtz and how was once a promising officer, they encounter Vietnamese civilians on the way, but a snap judgement gets them killed, he and Chief get in each other's faces, and Willard later finds out that another soldier was sent on a similar mission to kill Kurtz, but this soldier defected and joined the cult the rogue commander has created. Lance and Chef are under the influence of drugs are getting out of control, Mr. Clean is killed when the boat is attacked by an unseen enemy in the trees, Chief turns hostile, but they are ambushed again and he is killed being impaled by a spear, but Willard confides with surviving members Chef and Lance who reluctantly agree to continue on the mission, and upriver they find a bank littered with corpses. While Chef is able to leave and call an airstrike, the other two soldiers end up captured by Montagnard warriors, and they meet an eccentric Photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) who praises Kurtz as a genius, the soldiers see several heads scattered outside a temple, the cult leader's temple, Willard is taken to see him in the dark lair, he sees him as an errand boy, and Willard screams as Chef's severed head is dropped on his lap. Willard is released and free to explore the compound, Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, humanity and civilisation, Kurtz wants him to tell his son everything about him in the event of his death, but he kills the cult leader with a machete, his dying words are "The horror... the horror". Covered with dark stuff on his face, and having read the written chilling words of the now dead commander, and taking them, he descends from Kurtz's chamber and drops the blood covered weapon, the villagers kneel like he is their new cult leader, but he and Lance are allowed to leave and get back to the boat, having experienced all this devastation they ride away with the last words of Kurtz eerily echoing. The performances by Sheen, Brando, Duvall and Hopper are all very good for the characters they portray, and the direction by Coppola is masterful, there were loads of problems during the making of the film, such as firing Harvey Keitel from the lead role, and Sheen having a heart attack, but the idea was to create an idea of what being in Vietnam would be like, and indeed you get that sense of surrealism messing with your mind and the danger of the environment, it is a very interesting epic war drama. It won the Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Sound, and it was nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Film Editing, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Picture, it was nominated the BAFTAs for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music for Carmine and Francis Ford Coppola, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound Track and Best Film, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score, and it was nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Dennis Hopper was number 80, Marlon Brando number 30, and Harrison Ford number 5 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, Brando was also number 11 on The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols, he was number 4 on 100 Years, 100 Stars - Men, and Hopper was number 49, and Brando number 1 on The World's Greatest Actor, "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" was number 12 on 100 Years, 100 Quotes, the film was number 2 on The 100 Greatest War Films, it was number 1 on Film 4's 50 Films To See Before You Die, it was number 28 on 100 Years, 100 Movies, and it was number 13 on The 100 Greatest Films. Very good!