Apocalypse…Now?
*Heavy Spoiler, Read at Your Own Risk!*
Don’t let the name fool you; Francis Coppola’s movie has nothing to do with the
apocalypse but it can feel like it as it takes place in the heart of the Vietnam conflict. There are
explosions left and right, casualties on all sides, bullets flying everywhere and just when you
think it’s safe…BAM! There’s a freaking tiger! It’s an ugly gritty film that won numerous
awards and accolades (the cinematography I can agree with but everything else is a perspective I
can’t get on) so much so that it’s considered one of the greatest films of all time (for some
reason). To be a worthy film, it must a make you think and make you feel. While it certainly
makes me think, it also makes me want to vomit. To be fair, what I saw was the theatrical
version, not the 10 other numerous versions. So let’s get started with the train wreck shall we?
First of all there’s the drug lucid opening. The protagonist Captain Willard is staring up at
the ceiling fan of his hotel only there’s a superimposed view of heavy artillery exploding, more
gunfire, and in place of the fan motor are the rotors of a helicopter. Willard is on something
serious as he narrates over the opening that he couldn’t adjust going back home so he returned to
the jungle because he felt more at ease. Hey whatever floats your boat man…
Speaking of boats, that more or less where Willard is headed. He got special top secret
orders to take out a renegade commander known as Colonel Kurtz who has gone insane and has
put together a militia within Cambodia. (And hey there’s Harrison Ford!) The only way to get to
Kurtz’s location is by boat. The boat is manned by a small navy crew, the Chief as the
helmsman, the Chef, a surfer named Lance, and Mr. Clean aka a very young Lawrence
Fishbourne. The crew has no real knowledge of Willard’s mission only that they are to get him
there.
Their first stop is to a site occupied by the 1st Calvary. Once a horseback battalion, the
soldiers have traded their horses for heavy fire helicopters. Willard and his crew are pulling up to
the site in what looks to be the aftermath of a battle. The news corps is there trying to get “good”
shots of the victorious soldiers while the surviving Vietnamese are rounded up and pulled out.
Willard flags down the commander of the battalions, Kilgore who is savoring his victory. He
agrees to Willard’s request to give air support into the next leg of their journey. Later that night
as the battalion sits around having a mock barbeque, Willard remarks that by making the front
feel more like home, it softens the mentality of the soldiers.
The next morning Kilgore and his fleet of helicopters come flying in on a blaze of glory,
tearing apart a village, but not before warning the entire village with the stereo blasting. In the
middle of the firefight, Kilgore has Lance surf out in the water. I can’t tell if the director and
writing team was being serious or satirical when they made the suggestion. The rest of the main
cast seems about as perplexed as the audience does: the Navy guys are like what the hell are
these Army guys thinking and Willard’s more or less “meh”. I guess we at least get the famous
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning” line.
After an incident with a tiger, Willard and his escorts stop at a supply outpost. At first the
supply guy is giving Mr. Clean a lot of BS but then Willard threatens him and he squeals really
fast, offering up whatever they need and throwing in a bottle of Jack as an apology (wish I could
get Supply to be this cooperative). The boys gather around for a USO show and they go wild
when the girls are flown in by helicopter. Things get out of hand pretty quickly when some
spectators manage to get on stage and try to get with the girls but they are quickly whisked away
as fast as they as arrive by the same helicopters. Willard remarks that this was one of the last
shows the USO ever put on at the war front (not true as there are some comedic and B-list
musicians that tour to the forward deployed sites).
The next few days Willard’s crew pushes upriver and they come across a fishing boat.
Willard urges the chief to press on but the Chief cites that they must stop the boat and inspect it.
Things go pretty routine until Chef spots the one woman trying to hide something, panics, and
kills nearly everyone on the small boat. As the woman lies critically wounded on the bottom of
the boat, the Chef and Lance jump over and find that the woman was attempting to hide a puppy.
Lance takes the puppy while the Chief checks the woman’s vitals. When he tries to tell Willard
they need to take the woman to a triage, Willard shots the woman, putting her out of her misery
and glaring at the Chief telling him that he ordered the boat not to stop for anything.
As the boat heads closer to Cambodia, Willard is diving deeper into the files of Kurtz,
trying to figure out what drove him mad (and perhaps what keeps him from going off the edge as
well). They come across an outpost in the middle of a firefight. An officer approaches the boat
and Willard with their mail and news: another solider went in to take out Kurtz but failed.
Willard and another guy try to wade through the madness of men trying to escape and trying to
fight back against the invisible enemy. Willard requests to speak with whoever is in charge and
most men shrug off the question until they see either his serious expression or his title. The truth
is no one is in charge. At this last outpost before Cambodia, hell has won.
Now Willard and his crew have crossed into Cambodia. Lance has been off on something
for a few days now and sets off a smoke grenade. The smoke attracts insurgents in the jungle like
moths to a flame. In the firefight, Mr. Clean is killed with the voiceover of his mother’s letter
playing over his death scene. The puppy is lost and the Chief confronts Willard once more before
a knife takes him out from the back. All that’s left is Willard, Lance, and Chef.
Finally, Willard has arrived at his destination. The militia watch as the ship approaches as
they proudly display half naked dead bodies like human sacrifices around their perimeter. The
remainder of the crew is greeted by a crazed photographer who is either fearful or admiring of
Kurtz. Sensing possible hostilities, Willard has Chef sent back to the boat’s radio to call in an
airstrike. It’s a good call as moments later Willard is captured and brought before Kurtz.
And here is where the movie lost me. I have no real idea what really happens in the next
ten minutes. Willard and Kurtz talk but it’s uninspiring. I was just waiting for this movie to end
at this point. Somehow Chef is killed; it’s unknown if he completed the request for the airstrike
or not. Then Willard is thrown into a cell or is he? There’s a big religious gathering involving a
bull and Lance (still on acid) is dancing around half naked. Willard for some reason is out of cell
and free to wander around, kill some guards and get a knife. As the people begin hacking up the
bull so does Willard with Kurtz. Each blow to the cow is one to Kurtz. With his dying breath,
Kurtz rattles, “…the horror.” Willard steps out of the temple after killing Kurtz and the people
look up at him, not so much in shock or awe but just look at him. They back away from him as
he steps out of the temple and makes for the boat, only grabbing to pull out Lance at the last
second.
This movie was just bloated with so much that it was hard to focus on just the main story.
Honestly, the best character was the puppy. He was the only one I worried about. Oh, and Mr.
Clean’s suave dancing moves. But after all the other production problems (Martin Sheen having
a break down, long delays, the director unable to settle on a releasable cut) this movie is a hot
pile of garbage. If you really want to get some commentary on Vietnam as well as political satire
and consumerism, pick up the new “Flintstones” comic series by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh.
Don’t let the name fool you; Francis Coppola’s movie has nothing to do with the
apocalypse but it can feel like it as it takes place in the heart of the Vietnam conflict. There are
explosions left and right, casualties on all sides, bullets flying everywhere and just when you
think it’s safe…BAM! There’s a freaking tiger! It’s an ugly gritty film that won numerous
awards and accolades (the cinematography I can agree with but everything else is a perspective I
can’t get on) so much so that it’s considered one of the greatest films of all time (for some
reason). To be a worthy film, it must a make you think and make you feel. While it certainly
makes me think, it also makes me want to vomit. To be fair, what I saw was the theatrical
version, not the 10 other numerous versions. So let’s get started with the train wreck shall we?
First of all there’s the drug lucid opening. The protagonist Captain Willard is staring up at
the ceiling fan of his hotel only there’s a superimposed view of heavy artillery exploding, more
gunfire, and in place of the fan motor are the rotors of a helicopter. Willard is on something
serious as he narrates over the opening that he couldn’t adjust going back home so he returned to
the jungle because he felt more at ease. Hey whatever floats your boat man…
Speaking of boats, that more or less where Willard is headed. He got special top secret
orders to take out a renegade commander known as Colonel Kurtz who has gone insane and has
put together a militia within Cambodia. (And hey there’s Harrison Ford!) The only way to get to
Kurtz’s location is by boat. The boat is manned by a small navy crew, the Chief as the
helmsman, the Chef, a surfer named Lance, and Mr. Clean aka a very young Lawrence
Fishbourne. The crew has no real knowledge of Willard’s mission only that they are to get him
there.
Their first stop is to a site occupied by the 1st Calvary. Once a horseback battalion, the
soldiers have traded their horses for heavy fire helicopters. Willard and his crew are pulling up to
the site in what looks to be the aftermath of a battle. The news corps is there trying to get “good”
shots of the victorious soldiers while the surviving Vietnamese are rounded up and pulled out.
Willard flags down the commander of the battalions, Kilgore who is savoring his victory. He
agrees to Willard’s request to give air support into the next leg of their journey. Later that night
as the battalion sits around having a mock barbeque, Willard remarks that by making the front
feel more like home, it softens the mentality of the soldiers.
The next morning Kilgore and his fleet of helicopters come flying in on a blaze of glory,
tearing apart a village, but not before warning the entire village with the stereo blasting. In the
middle of the firefight, Kilgore has Lance surf out in the water. I can’t tell if the director and
writing team was being serious or satirical when they made the suggestion. The rest of the main
cast seems about as perplexed as the audience does: the Navy guys are like what the hell are
these Army guys thinking and Willard’s more or less “meh”. I guess we at least get the famous
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning” line.
After an incident with a tiger, Willard and his escorts stop at a supply outpost. At first the
supply guy is giving Mr. Clean a lot of BS but then Willard threatens him and he squeals really
fast, offering up whatever they need and throwing in a bottle of Jack as an apology (wish I could
get Supply to be this cooperative). The boys gather around for a USO show and they go wild
when the girls are flown in by helicopter. Things get out of hand pretty quickly when some
spectators manage to get on stage and try to get with the girls but they are quickly whisked away
as fast as they as arrive by the same helicopters. Willard remarks that this was one of the last
shows the USO ever put on at the war front (not true as there are some comedic and B-list
musicians that tour to the forward deployed sites).
The next few days Willard’s crew pushes upriver and they come across a fishing boat.
Willard urges the chief to press on but the Chief cites that they must stop the boat and inspect it.
Things go pretty routine until Chef spots the one woman trying to hide something, panics, and
kills nearly everyone on the small boat. As the woman lies critically wounded on the bottom of
the boat, the Chef and Lance jump over and find that the woman was attempting to hide a puppy.
Lance takes the puppy while the Chief checks the woman’s vitals. When he tries to tell Willard
they need to take the woman to a triage, Willard shots the woman, putting her out of her misery
and glaring at the Chief telling him that he ordered the boat not to stop for anything.
As the boat heads closer to Cambodia, Willard is diving deeper into the files of Kurtz,
trying to figure out what drove him mad (and perhaps what keeps him from going off the edge as
well). They come across an outpost in the middle of a firefight. An officer approaches the boat
and Willard with their mail and news: another solider went in to take out Kurtz but failed.
Willard and another guy try to wade through the madness of men trying to escape and trying to
fight back against the invisible enemy. Willard requests to speak with whoever is in charge and
most men shrug off the question until they see either his serious expression or his title. The truth
is no one is in charge. At this last outpost before Cambodia, hell has won.
Now Willard and his crew have crossed into Cambodia. Lance has been off on something
for a few days now and sets off a smoke grenade. The smoke attracts insurgents in the jungle like
moths to a flame. In the firefight, Mr. Clean is killed with the voiceover of his mother’s letter
playing over his death scene. The puppy is lost and the Chief confronts Willard once more before
a knife takes him out from the back. All that’s left is Willard, Lance, and Chef.
Finally, Willard has arrived at his destination. The militia watch as the ship approaches as
they proudly display half naked dead bodies like human sacrifices around their perimeter. The
remainder of the crew is greeted by a crazed photographer who is either fearful or admiring of
Kurtz. Sensing possible hostilities, Willard has Chef sent back to the boat’s radio to call in an
airstrike. It’s a good call as moments later Willard is captured and brought before Kurtz.
And here is where the movie lost me. I have no real idea what really happens in the next
ten minutes. Willard and Kurtz talk but it’s uninspiring. I was just waiting for this movie to end
at this point. Somehow Chef is killed; it’s unknown if he completed the request for the airstrike
or not. Then Willard is thrown into a cell or is he? There’s a big religious gathering involving a
bull and Lance (still on acid) is dancing around half naked. Willard for some reason is out of cell
and free to wander around, kill some guards and get a knife. As the people begin hacking up the
bull so does Willard with Kurtz. Each blow to the cow is one to Kurtz. With his dying breath,
Kurtz rattles, “…the horror.” Willard steps out of the temple after killing Kurtz and the people
look up at him, not so much in shock or awe but just look at him. They back away from him as
he steps out of the temple and makes for the boat, only grabbing to pull out Lance at the last
second.
This movie was just bloated with so much that it was hard to focus on just the main story.
Honestly, the best character was the puppy. He was the only one I worried about. Oh, and Mr.
Clean’s suave dancing moves. But after all the other production problems (Martin Sheen having
a break down, long delays, the director unable to settle on a releasable cut) this movie is a hot
pile of garbage. If you really want to get some commentary on Vietnam as well as political satire
and consumerism, pick up the new “Flintstones” comic series by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh.
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