Horrible But Exciting

Rating: 9/10 (25 September 2017)

That's what war is for Captain Benjamin L Willard, and it's why he had to come back to Vietnam and divorce his home life for another mission. This time he is assigned to assassinate US Special Forces, Colonel Walter Kurtz. Kurtz has gone insane and has occupied a small territory in Cambodia with its natives, ruling over them as if he were a god. The audience is taken along with Willard, through the jungle on the patrol boat headed up-river toward Kurtz's outpost, challenged to see the duality of war. War is indeed exciting, but there is a dark side, which is undeniably horrific.
I give the movie a 9/10 for its effectiveness in contrasting the excitement of war with the terrible pain it creates, and also its ability to unsettle the audience with the message that we all have the potential to become a Kurtz.