The Critique: Apocalypse Now

“I want to take the audience through an unprecedented experience of war and have them react as much as those who had gone through the war"- Francis Ford Coppola.

These lines pretty much sum the experience of “Apocalypse Now”. Starring Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L Willard in lead roles.

Captain Willard is back to Vietnam War after a trip to home, where he’s just had a divorce cause of the strain from the war. He knows that things will never be the same again for home as “home didn’t exist”.
Willard is commissioned to terminate a rebel officer, Colonel Kurtz. Colonel Kurtz has gone insane, is in deep jungle and considered God by the local tribe. It is a mission that officially does not exist.

Willard sets of in a boat up the Nung River on the way to Kurtz, with a crew of 5 people. Along the way he sees places that American are senselessly bombarding places and latter mopping up to quote Willard “offer a band-aid after ripping into half”

Along the way Willard keeps getting information about Kurtz history. Kurtz has been top of his class had served in Vietnam, was being groomed for post of General. Suddenly he returned to Vietnam again and won a major fight with help from locals. Willard put together what Kurtz had gone through, and begins to understand that war had pushed Kurtz to the edge of sanity- and beyond it.

Finally he reaches to Kurtz den where he finds his followers and his enemies’ bodies, their severed heads lying around. He meets the man and days later in a dramatic climax manages to butcher Kurtz, when the tribe is busy butchering a sacrificial animal.

The film has moments that will stay with you forever. It has great performances, complex storyline. The redux version is about 3 hours and 13 minutes long, but the movie indeed is about darkest side of war and indeed it does in mere 3 hours make us feel the true Horror of War.

For The Reel; Written By: Ali 'Rosebud' Naqvi

Statesmen: Francis Ford Coppola

He was the creator of the cinematic myth of Dons. His marvelous effort ranks 3rd at AFI 100 Years 100 Movies list, just behind Citizen Kane and Casablanca (in order). He is Coppola- the director of Godfather.
Coppola directed some of the greatest movies of all times but his career is overshadowed by one big name- Godfather. More people remember Marlon Brando as Don than Mario Puzo, the creator of the character. Godfather is one of few novels that are overshadowed by the celluloid Xerox.


Godfather was his destiny. He was born in Detroit to a family of Italia ancestry. As a child, Coppola suffered from polio. Unlike hundreds of thousands who surrender, he fought and chased his dreams. With his father’s 8 mm camera, he started making movies (homemade puppet theatre) at age of ten. That was just a beginning.

His career started off with a low budget movie- Dementia 13. That was early 1960s. But his big kick was in 1971 when he bagged an Academy Award for Patton (Best Screenplay). He followed up with highly acclaimed Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974) and Godfather II (1974). His next venture was Apocalypse Now (1979). It was the pinnacle of his career. His paid a lot for this venture and returns compensated. Like Citizen Kane, the movie achieved fame exponentially. Today, some critics rank it over Godfather.

His next few ventures were failure including an acclaimed cinematic effort- The Cotton Club. In late 80s, people considered him to be a jinxed demigod. He was desperate to prove people wrong. He returned with a bang- Godfather III. Though it did not win critical accolades, it was a blockbuster giving Coppola a much deserved success.

Even today, Coppola is a big Hollywood name. For some people, box-office doesn’t mean success or failure. Coppola is one of them.

For The Reel; Written By: Sujoy Ghosh