Apocalypse Now

 3.5.4

Starring: Martin Sheen, Albert Hall, Laurence Fishburne, Frederic Forrest, Sam Bottoms, Marlon Brando

Rated R (probable for Disturbing War Violence, Language, Drugs and Sexual Content)

Although the setting of "Apocalypse Now" is the Vietnam war, this isn't a war picture.  It's a horror film.

Few films I've seen are as genuinely eerie and disturbing as "Apocalypse Now," the 1979 film from Francis Ford Coppola.  With every passing moment, the sense of terror and madness grows.  Coppola has done something completely original and daring: he has created a vision of hell on Earth.  Not many people would have the nerve or the skill to pull this off.  But Coppola did.

The set up is simple.  Captain Benjamin Willard (Sheen) is an army assassin who, on his 3rd tour of duty in Vietnam, has been given a new assignment.  A highly respected special forces officer, Col. Walter Kurtz (Brando) has gone insane.  He has gone rogue from the US Army and created a cult where he is worshipped as a god.  The army wants Willard to kill Kurtz by any means necessary.

Willard is given a boat with a crew to help him carry out his mission.  "Chief" (Hall) drives the boat and doesn't like the idea of ceding control to Willard.  "Chef" (Forrest) is a cook from New Orleans who doesn't like war.  Lance (Bottoms) is a renowned surfer and druggie.  And "Mr. Clean" (Fishburne) is a kid from the Bronx.  None of them know about Willard's mission and he intends to keep it that way.  But the closer he gets to Kurtz, the more fascinated and obsessed he becomes.

"Apocalypse Now" is structured as a series of events designed to show that Vietnam is a world gone mad. The code of conduct that is emblematic of the military has long since been abandoned.  Only the struggle for survival remains for those who are lucky.  For everyone else, there is only insanity or death.  The physical journey is up a fictional river so that Willard can kill his target, but the true voyage is into the darkest recesses of the human mind where the human spirit has long since been broken beyond repair.

Immediately after starting "Apocalypse Now," the first thing I noticed was the film's look.  As filmed by acclaimed cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, the film achieves an ominous, threatening atmosphere that is overpowering.  The film takes place in a world that is alien from our own.  Watching it, I could almost feel the mosquitoes biting me, and the mixture of fear, machismo and the pursuit of glory.  Coppola might as well have opened the film with the famous Dante Alighieri quote: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

The performances are rock solid.  With his low-key, gravelly voice and piercing stare, the normally likable Martin Sheen radiates a cold intensity.  Whatever innocence Willard had before his mission (and as an assassin in Vietnam, he never had much) will be gone.  Sheen is the only one with more than a handful of lines, so this movie rests on his shoulders.  Robert Duvall shows up as a gung-ho commander (who can forget his classic line: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"?) who lives for war and has surfing in his veins.  He might be the most insane man in the movie.  Pre-fame stars like Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford (although it was released after "Star Wars," it was filmed beforehand) and Scott Glenn make appearances.  The only one who doesn't work is a loopy photographer played by Dennis Hopper.  It's not that Hopper is bad in the role, but the character doesn't fit.  Either Hopper is miscast or the character should have been written out completely.

The lion's share of the acting fame for "Apocalypse Now" goes to Marlon Brando ("The horror...The horror").  While Brando has a commanding screen presence and manages to chill in his role, the truth of the matter is that he doesn't have a lot to do.  He waxes poetic a bit, as any actor must in a role like this, but Kurtz is an enigma.  What we learn about him comes second hand.  It's an interesting choice, but there's not enough of it to make him stand out from any other "good guy gone bad."

The film is infamous in Hollywood lore for the difficulties that Coppola and his crew faced while making this films.  Typhoon Olga wrecked 40-80% of the sets, Harvey Keitel had to be replaced by Martin Sheen because Coppola didn't think he was cast right, Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming, and Marlon Brando showed up on set horribly overweight and unprepared.  Coppola himself even threatened suicide several times during production.  If that doesn't give you an idea, know that Laurence Fishburne lied about his age to be cast at 14, but the film wasn't released until he turned 18.  His wife Eleanor even made a documentary out of the struggle to make the film, called "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse."

And yet, after all of that, what are we left with?  Surely, the film is something special and is well worth seeing.  But what is it about?  What is the point of it?  I have no idea.  I can tell you what happens when Willard meets Kurtz, but I cannot explain the scene.  This is a movie that demands to be talked about afterwards.  Surely there is more to this movie than "War is hell and it drives men mad."

Flaws aside, the film remains a genuinely compelling, if unsettling, piece of cinema.