#30 - Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 war epic "Apocalypse Now" has become famous for several reasons. The two most notable are the famous quote "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" (more on that later) and the ridiculous amount of obstacles and annoyance Coppola had to go through to get the film made. An entirely separate movie has been produced that details the struggles of getting the film made ("Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse"). Martin Sheen, the main character, suffered a heart attack midway through production. Talk about heartache on poor Coppola's project.

But what results out of all that turmoil is a gem of American cinema. While it can be slow in some parts, the movie still retains a sense of urgency that is infectious -- you can't wait to see what the next scene will hold. From Robert Duvall's infamous napalm speech amidst surfin' safaris and bombing the Charlies out of the forest to seeing a young Laurence Fishburne's as Mr. Clean, the movie has a lot of good things going for it.

That being said, I think the performances relied too heavily on the material. Marlon Brando is amazing as Colonel Kurtz, the allegedly insane murderer who Sheen's character is sent to kill. But everyone else seemed to just be reciting the lines--which was fine because the screenplay was beautifully written (and with a base text like "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, where can you go wrong?).

The movie's scope--its grandness of scale--is the best thing it has going for it. The elaborate war sequences with bridges destroyed, helicopters bombed, Vietnamese women gunned down, and a seemingly harmless spear through someone's torso all culminate to create one of the most violent, cerebral, profound movies of our time.