Apocalypse Now 1979

It is the height of the war in Vietnam and U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent by Colonel Lucas and a General to carry out a mission that officially does not exist nor will it ever exist. The mission To seek out a mysterious Green Beret Colonel Walter Kurtz whose army has crossed the border into Cambodia and is conducting hitandrun missions against the Viet Cong and NVA. The army believes Kurtz has gone completely insane and Willards job is to eliminate him! Willard sent up the Nung River on a U.S. Navy patrol boat discovers that his target is one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. Army. His crew meets up with surfertype LtColonel Kilgore head of a U.S Army helicopter cavalry group which eliminates a Viet Cong outpost to provide an entry point into the Nung River. After some hairraising encounters in which some of his crew are killed Willard Lance and Chef reach Colonel Kurtzs outpost beyond the Do Lung Bridge. Now after becoming prisoners of Kurtz will...

Review

After the success of the first two 'Godfather' films in 1972 and 1974 respectively Francis Ford Coppola embarked on an ambitious attempt to bring home the reality of the war in Vietnam which had concluded with the fall of Saigon to the Vietcong in 1975… The plot was loosely based on the book 'Heart of Darkness' a story by Joseph Conrad about Kurtz a trading company agent in the African jungle who has acquired mysterious powers over the natives…Coppola retains much of this including such details as the severed heads outside Kurtz's headquarters and his final words "The horror… the horror…"

In the film Sheen plays an army captain given the mission to penetrate into Cambodia and eliminate with "extreme prejudice" a decorated officer who has become an embarrassment to the authorities… On his journey up the river to the renegade's camp he experiences the demoralization of the US forces high on dope or drunk with power…

Although as a result of cuts forced on Coppola the film was accused of incoherence when first released it was by the most serious attempt to get to grips with the experience of Vietnam and a victorious reinvention of the war film genre… In 1980 the film won an Oscar for Best Cinematography and Best Sound…

"Apocalypse Now" was rereleased in 2001 with fifty minutes restored… As a result the motion picture can now be seen as the epic masterpiece it is…