War Movie Month: Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola's epic (and when I say epic, I mean bigger than epic) war film about Vietnam is considered one of the greatest films ever made and after rewatching it for the I-don't-know-how-many time, I am still blown away by the impact it has on me. The film has a storied production, it took 16 months to film and many years to edit, but the film has also influenced pop culture in a way that no other film before or since has done so. The main theme at play is the insanity of war and how that insanity affects the soldiers who fight.

Captain Ben Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent on a mission up the Nung River, where he must locate and kill Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a rogue US Army Colonel. Willard is escorted up the river in a Navy PBR led by Chief (Albert Hall) and crewed by famous surfer Lance (Sam Bottoms), Chef (Frederic Forrest) and Mr Clean (Laurence Fishburne).

Aside from being one of the greatest films ever made, Apocalypse Now is also one of the biggest films ever made, not in terms of budget, but more physical scale. Some of the set pieces are truly awe inspiring. There is of course the famous scene in which an air cavalry unit led by Lieutenant Kilgore (Robert Duvall) assaults a river village while Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" is blasted from loudspeakers. But rewatching it this time I noticed a few others which really amazed me and I've seen this movie on the big screen. There is a huge night scene where the crew come across an American outpost under attack from Vietnamese soldiers. The number of explosions and the performance of Sam Bottoms in this scene is amazing.

But in general all the performances in this movie are among the best ever committed to screen. Sheen gives the most convincing performance as a man who is obsessed with achieving his objective, but eventually becomes obsessed with the man he is assigned to kill. Despite all the horror stories about Marlon Brando and his actions on the set of the film, he actually gives a great performance, despite only being in the film for close to twenty minutes. Frederic Forrest gives an amazing performance as Chef, a New Orleans chef who was drafted and chose to be in the Navy because he heard they had the best food. He is probably my favourite character out of the group.

Laurence Fishburne is also remarkable in this film, although I find the story of his casting even more remarkable. He actually lied to Francis Ford Coppola and said that he was 17 when they cast him, but it turns out that he actually 14 when they shot the film. Despite this, his skill at that age is amazing. The other performance that is hard not to talk about is Dennis Hopper's. Hopper plays a character known only as the photojournalist. He lives in the compound with Kurtz and is hypnotised by the colonel's teachings, although when I watch his scenes, I can't help but feel he acts as if Coppola was actually a character in the film (Coppola by the way does have a cameo in the film as a director of a news story).

I would really recommend watching the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, made by Coppola's wife Eleanor during the filming of the movie. It covers everything from the immense damage caused by storms to the film sets to the heart attack that Martin Sheen suffered during the production and also a very creepy interview had with Coppola, who is on the verge of insanity.

Like Das Boot, Apocalypse Now has two versions available and I will say to watch them both. There is the the original theatrical cut, which is a clear and concise war movie and then there is Apocalypse Now Redux, which I watched for this review. It adds about 47 minutes of extra sequences including a big scene where the crew on the boat encounter a French family who have been living in a mansion from back in the old French colonial days of Indochina and a slightly over the top scene involving Playboy bunnies who appeared earlier in the film. Unless your unfamiliar with the history of south-east Asia or just like seeing naked ladies, I would recommend watching the original version more.

Verdict: Apocalypse Now is the pinnacle of big budget movies (for the 70s anyway). It has inspired more pop culture moments than anything else and will continue to do so.

The Judge

Recently, it seems impossible for Robert Downey Jr. to play a character who isn't an arrogant know-it-all, and his role as Hank Palmer in David Dobkin's The Judge is no different. Yet Hank's strong family ties and an iron-will to defend his father at all costs, further proves that Downey Jr. is a fantastic actor.

Henry "Hank" Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) is a talented lawyer and the son of a long-serving and highly respected judge, Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall). The two lost connection with one-another many years ago, after a young Hank injured his older brother Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio), in a car accident and his father sent him to a juvenile detention centre. After the death of his mother, Hank returns to Indiana to attend the funeral and once again has a run-in with his father.

After Joseph is suspected of murdering a criminal, whom he sent to prison and was recently released on parole, Hank serves as his attorney and perseveres to prove his father's innocence against the odds of overwhelming evidence, strenuous relations with his family, and the determination of the prosecuting lawyer (Billy Bob Thornton).

This is a film that sets out to prove that blood is thicker than water, from the rocky father-son relationship, to the compassion Hank finds in his siblings. This makes for some truly touching moments throughout, and certainly some very confronting scenes. However these are unfortunately subdued by an overwhelming sense of sentimentality that becomes rather tiring and makes up the bulk of the nearly two-and-a-half hour running time. Instead, it is the courtroom scenes where the movie really comes-alive. It is here, mainly in the second-half of the movie, that we witness Hank's supremacy as a lawyer and where the humanity of the story and the troubled relationships really start to emerge.

Seeing Downey go head-to-head with Duvall is quite astounding. Both prove through their performances that they are some of the most talented actors alive today. I felt that Vincent D'Onofrio wasn't capitalised as much as he could have been, but he certainly shines in his moments in the spotlight, and Thornton, continuing in the wake of Fargo, proves that he is more than capable of playing a total bad-ass.

The Judge has an interesting, if slightly overdone look to it. There's an apparent obsession with panning and tracking shots throughout the film, as if they were afraid to just leave the camera static and let the scene develop, coupled with a huge amount of chiaroscuro lighting that seems to always show Downey Jr. in an angelic light. However once they simplify things, the beautifully gritty look emerges.

Despite some of these faults, The Judge remains a fantastic movie. Supported by a gripping, if slightly too 'Hollywood' story and substantial performances all-round, it never fails to keep you interested, and maybe even just a bit touched.