Apocalypse Now (1979)

 “No wonder Kurtz put a weed up Command’s ass. The war was being run by a bunch of four star clowns who were gonna end up giving the whole circus away.” – Willard

Number of Times Seen – 2 (Dec 1990 and 24 Jun 2014)

Brief Synopsis – A CIA assassin is sent deep into the Vietnamese countryside to find a renegade officer and kill him.

My Take on it – In high school, this was a movie that was assigned to me by my English comp teacher. He wanted me to analyses the mission of Willard and Kurtz’s apparent insanity.

Being a 16 year old, I didn’t quite understand the importance of this movie and therefore stayed away from watching this again for 24 years.

I have been meaning to re watch this for years but my negative viewing back then kept me away.

The version I chose to watch was the directors cut which although it is over three hours long doesn’t feel stretched out in the least.

The acting is superb. Martin Sheen reminded me more of his two sons Emilio and Charlie as opposed to his Jed Bartlett persona that we all know and live from The West Wing.

Marlon Brando as Kurtz is s bit of an anomaly on his own. Both his character and his real life issues at the time are very strange and there are way too many ways to interpret his role.

That being said, the movie itself has numerous interpretations and I think there truly is no right or wrong answer to defining what the message of this movie is.

It is such a masterpiece that making it conform to one answer would never do it justice.

I think the only reason this movie lost best picture to Kramer vs. Kramer is the fact that although both are great movies, this one is harder to define one way or another and the academy chose to go with the ‘safe’ winner.

Bottom Line – Movie that can be understood on multiple levels but any way you look at it, it’s close to being a masterpiece. Highly recommended!

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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