Possibly the most ambitious film ever made...

Rating: 10/10 (1 December 1999)

Francis Coppola's descent into madness back in the late 1970's was all about APOCALYPSE NOW, one of the most incredible pieces of art ever placed on the screen. It is violent, beautiful, ugly, and damn dark at times. As a war film, APOCALYPSE NOW does not move me anywhere near the way PLATOON and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN did. Those two pictures deal with war in a more combative, realistic way. You grow and bond with the troupes in those flicks. Here, you are engulfed in complete madness, something that seems apart from actual war. It is more of a morality play into the soul and our "hearts of darkness" than a war film.
Do I think Coppola made a mistake trying to base a story about the Vietnam War on Joseph Conrad's fictional "Heart of Darkness"? Sure, and I think he feels that way too. Vietnam and the U.S involvement in the war has nothing to do with what Coppola was trying to do. He once said "My film IS Vietnam," referring to APOCALYPSE, but is it really? Not at all. What results is unbelievably hard to assess except to say it is sheer brilliance. It transcends the horrors of war and seemed more of a personal film with Martin Sheen representing each of us as a complex human being on an impossible mission. It is like traveling to Hell and back, many scars obtained, many feelings drowned out.
Everyone who knows a dime about movies, knows the battle itself it was to make this ambitious film. So many images burn into memory: nepalm explosions to the tune of the Door's "The End"; Wagner blaring from speakers placed on some U.S. helicopters about to blow up a Vietnamese village; a soldier surfing to the Stone's "Satisfaction"; the final ritualistic slaughter we witness during the film's dreary ending. This is all fantasy. The war is nowhere to be found in these and multiple other sequences. Vietnam is merely a backdrop to display a truly insane trip up a river where one clearly defined character (Sheen as Willard) meets a fuzzy character (Brando as Kurtz) and no real resolutions are found. It is the trip that does it for us.
Wondrously eerie sights, sounds, and experiences pulsate throughout APOCALYPSE NOW and the first three quarters of the film are perfect. Under the conditions Coppola and crew were working under, it is no wonder they had no ending. Brando truly ruins what Sheen, in what is probably the most underrated performance of the 70's as "Willard", had done to the point of arrival at Kurtz' compound. What the hell is Brando talking about? At least Sheen comes through at the end giving us a hint as to what the journey meant to him.
This film ranks way high on my list because of the mystery of it all and the absolute audacity with which Coppola paints his descent into madness.