Apocalypse Now

1979 horror movie

Rating: 20/20 (Dylan: 17/20)

Plot: During Vietnam, a guy is sent on a mission to kill a corporal who has apparently gone crazy and engaged in crazy activities. You know, like war. That's a pretty crazy activity.

This crazy movie about crazy people doing crazy things shouldn't exist. It's like a cinematic miracle. Coppola was as bloated as he can be, and we're talking about the guy who made his actors play "sound ball," so we know he can be really bloated. He came in with half-formed ideas, filmed about 20,000 hours of material for this, nearly killed his star, likely nearly blew up a whole bunch of other people, buried Filipino guys up to their necks in sand all day, had to deal with a difficult and even more bloated Marlon Brando who refused to prepare for his fairly-important role at all, and spent a long-ass time editing it into something coherent. There's no way this should have worked. There's no way a lot of these people should have even survived. The result of all this--a masterpiece--is astounding.

Is this a war movie? I don't think it's a war movie, but I think it might be the greatest war movie ever.

I'm just going to ramble. Nobody is reading this anyway, so I can get away with rambling.

"We got a dead one." I believe those are the first spoken words other than our narrator's, and they describe our narrator right after a hotel freak-out with that perfect--if a bit too obvious--song choice. Sheen's a "dead one" and we're off on his own personal journey through the however-many rings of an LSD-fueled hell. This is Coffin Joe making a war movie after somebody thought he was somebody else and gave him a truckload of money.

My favorite character might be Frederic Forrest's Chef even though I'm not sure what "Kiss my ass to the county square" means. I believe that's what he said, post-tiger, and it was likely improvised since by that point in the movie, somebody had already accidentally eaten all the copies of the script.

No! Dennis Fucking Hopper is my favorite! That's despite hooking a 14-year-old "Larry" Fishburne on heroin because that's exactly the kind of thing Dennis Fucking Hopper would do. Every single performance in this isn't just good--it's stellar, perfect. Every single one! And given the circumstances and the way this thing was filmed? Again, it's just astounding.

Maybe Shelley Duvall's dad is my favorite! His Kilgore isn't in much of this movie, but the way he just stands like a statue as things are exploding around him makes this one of the best performances ever. He's electric, seemingly impossible for an actor to pull off with the chaos going on in his scenes. My favorite moment (other than imagining Robert Duvall trying to surf)--when a wounded man reaches for a canteen that a distracted Kilgore has out of his reach. And the way he says "Some day this war's gonna end" gives it more possible meanings than I can even count.

No! I'm changing my mind again! My favorite character in this is the omnipresent setting sun, almost in as many scenes as Sheen and in a lot more than top-billed Brando. The sun is always there, like a demonic presence watching this whole thing unfold.

That Wagner certainly makes that helicopter cavalry scene iconic, doesn't it? I really like all the music in this, the deep synth tones sometimes reminding me of the opening Wendy Carlos number in The Shining.

What about Brando? I'm not even sure he's any good here, but at the same time, he's perfect, a hulk of a man who has somehow gained a hundred pounds of shoulder meat while living in a temple in Cambodia. Do you think he's turned to cannibalism? I'm referring to Brando himself obviously, not the character he's playing. How about that introduction to the character? It's on tape, Brando murmuring about snails on razor blades or something.

So many iconic scenes. The best, I think, is the psychedelic nightmare at that bridge. Demented circus music, complete chaos with apparently nobody in charge though that guy skilled in grenade-launching knows that the devil (or maybe God) is really in charge. The asshole of the world indeed! Toy arrows, a lunge for a puppy, the wreckage of an airplane. How many rings of hell are there again?

I watched the original version of this. I have not seen the "Redux" and really have no plans to watch it. The "Dux" is enough for me. I might watch the documentary about the making of this made by Coppola's wife though.