Review of Apocalypse Now (1979) by Dkg822 — 05 Aug 2015

‘Apocalypse Now’ is a haunting film that stays with you long after you have seen the movie. It is a movie that keeps playing in your head reminding you about its eerie characters, haunting and almost hypnotic tone. The movie, is however, definitely not perfect. I actually ended up watching the Redux version of the movie which is 3hr 16min long and definitely found it to be too long. I felt that there were some aspects that could have been skipped and played less importance to the overall effect of the movie but later also felt that maybe these aspects were essential in order to completely understand the Vietnam War. However, the movie definitely dragged considerably in its middle portions and became a bit repetitive. Apart from its lengthy pace, however, ‘Apocalypse Now’ is nearly perfect as a film. The moments of action are amazing, the narration pitch perfect, the cinematography top - notch and the characters striking. The first and last hour of the movie actually is exceptionally engaging due credit to its characters and dialogue also. ‘Coppola’ impressively integrates different characters and adds humor to the movie in the first hour in particular. ‘Duvail’s’ performance as ‘Colonel Bill Kilgore’ in particular is terrific in the first hour and adds the right measure of cockiness and humor in the story. The segment of story involving his platoons attack on a Vietnamese village is terrifically staged, shot and executed. A sequence in particular involving the helicopter attacks with music playing in the background is stylishly shot and extremely memorable. The supporting characters in the movie also make a considerable mark especially ‘Forrest’s’ ‘Chef’ and ‘Bottoms’ ‘Lance’. The supporting characters add humor in good measure to the heavy story and keep the movie amusing towards the movie’s weak second hour. The performances and scenes are well complemented by some exceptional cinematography and great direction. The last hour of the movie is what remained with me the most after the movie got over. The last segment of the story involving ‘Sheen’ and ‘Brando’ is emotionally haunting and psychotically moving. The set up for ‘Brando’s’ ‘Kurtz’ is so effective that once his character shows up in the movie, I was instantly intrigued by him. His haunting character is complemented by a terrific performance by ‘Brando’ who literally scared me with every word he uttered. Lastly, ‘Sheen’ as the protagonist ‘Willard’ is also pretty terrific and lends immense credibility to a character which is difficult to sympathize with. ‘Sheen’ makes the character believable and brings out the angst and frustration of war very well.

Overall, ‘Apocalypse Now’ is a very true and harrowing display of the Americans experience in the Vietnamese war. The movie has some terrific performances, terrific direction, unpredictability and an overall haunting tone to it which stayed with me after I had watched the movie. The reason the movie falls from being a true great for me is because of its weak middle portion which dragged considerably and diluted the movies overall effect.