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Kurtz has seemingly gone insane and the top brass want him
removed. The trouble is that as Willard journeys by river
into Cambodia he discovers that maybe the man knows what he
is doing and may in fact have the answers to winning the unwinnable
war.
And the journey Willard embarks upon, aboard the patrol boat
Streetgang, is as wild an adventure as you would ever want
to join.
The commander of the boat is The Chief (Albert Hall) who
is as straightlaced as they come. The other three members
of the crew are not. There's Chef (Frederick Forrest), Miller
(a very, very young Laurence Fishburne) and pro-surfer Lance
Johnson (Sam Bottoms). The weirder the war gets, the more
drugged out and loopy the crew gets.
One of the most memorable characters is the eccentric air
cavalry commander Colonel William Kilgore (Robert Duvall),
who attacks a Viet Cong-held coastal village just so he can
let some of his men surf.
Two of the most well known quotes from movies come from him
"Charlie don't surf" and "I love the smell
of napalm in the morning." The sequence where his helicopter
gunships come in over the water with Wagner's Ride of the
Valkyries screaming out is truly amazing.
However way-out Kilgore happens to be, it is nothing to what
Willard and the crew of the Streetgang have to face further
up the river.
There is the Show for the Boys with Playboy bunnies, the
surreal night scenes at a bridge under attack, arriving at
the French plantation, Kurtz's base and the gut-wrenching
search of a sanpan.
Once he meets Kurtz, Willard then has to weigh up his orders
against what he wants to do and the penultimate scene is both
beautifully photgraphed and brutal.
Director Francis Ford Coppola copped a lot of flak for making
Apocalypse Now, there were so many problems at one
stage it didn't look like being finished, but what he came
up with is piece of film-making almost without peer.
Sheen is outstanding as the initially tormented killer who
discovers that he is actually more sane than most in the war.
Brando, criticised for his huge pay packet for what the critics
said was very little work, is sinisterly reasonable (to a
point) as Kurtz.
The crew of the Streetgang work brilliantly together and
really it is their disintegration that makes the movie. It
is amazing that Fishburne was only 14 when cast, and only
17 when the movie was released!
Also watch out for Dennis Hopper as the freaked out photojournalist
and Harrison Ford as the young military aide.
This remastered version looks utterly stunning and while
there is some grain at times is truly gorgeous. Some words
of advice - watch it on the biggest screen you can. The sound,
which was done almost entirely from scratch for the Redux,
is rich, filled with positional depth and is as exciting as
you will hear. I rate it 10/10.
The extra scenes are clearly marked on the scene selection
and they really do add a whole new depth to Apocalypse
Now. Whether it be the hoplessness of the war - in the
scene with the stranded Playboy Bunnies - or the history of
the conflict from the French viewpoint - a much-maligned addition,
but one I found both interesting and giving more balance to
why America was fighting.
If you want to see one of the greatest movies ever made,
in the way it was meant to be seen, then Apocalypse Now
Redux is the way to do it.
Conclusion: Movie 95%, Extras 65%
Continued:
DVD details at a glance >
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