Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1832 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-18
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French, Vietnamese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 153 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it was his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made. It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story "Heart of Darkness" into the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz(Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving war-time action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning." Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon

Amazon.co.uk Review
In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it were his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair, but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made.

It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story Heart of Darkness onto the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving wartime action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images, and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gun-ships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways on a peasant sampan and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning". Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by his wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

DVD Description
Francis Ford Coppola's stunning vision of man's heart of darkness revealed through the madness of the Vietnam War.

Customer Reviews

Artistic, well acted, nuts and should be avoided by anyone who hates animal cruelty
Beautifully filmed, excellent casting and good acting in a thoroughly disturbing film about the insanity of war. Up until that point, I would say, if you like films about the insanity that goes with most conflicts then this is your sort of film.

However, I cannot tolerate animal cruelty for the purposes of entertainment. Regardless of how drugged it may have been, the hacking to death of a water buffalo at the end of this film for the sake of entertainment is unacceptable. Apparently the American Humane Association gave this film an "unacceptable" rating and I have to say, I agree with them. For anyone that says that this is part of the lunacy of war, I would remind them that blowing people to bits is as well, but no actors were on the receiving end of grenades etc during the filming.

So for anyone who is disgusted by senseless cruelty to animals, avoid this film. For anyone with a humane bone in their body, avoid this film. But for anyone else, enjoy the art. Having seen it, I won't be watching this film again. So, if you're considering buying it but think you might not like the last scene, figure that you might only watch it once ever and wonder if it is worth spending the money if you do only watch it once.

The insanity of war
Much has been documented about the mental breakdown of Coppola when directing modern war epic Apocalypse now. The amount of material shot (pardon the pun) was enough to make a film running at over at week - but several edits later we are left with a masterpiece of around two and a half hours in length.

Logistically speaking the film was a nightmare to get finished, after late minute recasts, Martin Sheen played the lead role whilst suffering from alcoholism and nearly died of a heart attack. His poor health lead to his own brother stepping in to double for him in many scenes. The script was constantly re-written and the ending was changed several times over in subsequent edits. The film went massively over budget, the sets were wrecked during monsoon season, the helicopters used were actual military ones and had to fly away to do their `day job'. The catalogue of issues dogging this film is too long to list - but the frustration and the pure neuralgia surrounding the film comes through strong, and that cements the film as one of the most realistic films of the Vietnam war, and one of the most haunting war films ever.

Sent on a mission to kill the wonder-kid turned pseudo Jungle-king Kurtz, Willard starts to slowly lose any mental stability he had left - so much so that he can relate to Kurtz's insane philosophy. The journey to find Kurtz is a long one, and one which allows us more than just a glimpse into the human side of war. From pointless deaths, man-made horrors, and manic military leaders (resulting in one of the most famous quotes in film history "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning..."). The imagery is over-the-top, but given the setting it seems natural - almost blasé, that's what this film does so well - it puts you in the war.

Coppola famously said that "my film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam" - and to a large extent it is. There are no heroes here, no glamour, just futility. This is more than just a film, it's an experience - sometimes abstract, and often difficult to watch, but it stays with you. You watch this and whether you love it or are indifferent to it, you can accept that we're lucky that this film was finally made.

A good film yes, but is it really a war film?
A watched this film for only the second time yesterday, the first viewing I remember very little about, the second viewing will certainly be more memorable for me, this film is very much a Martin Sheen film, Marlon Brando is hardly even in it so why he "stars" in it is beyond me, at best he's a supporting actor and not much more than an extra.

The one thing that struck me though was that this film is listed as one of the greatest war films ever, this film is nothing more than an assassination film, with a small amount of war thrown in, yes it's set during a war, but if it's action, guns, planes, ships, explosions that you're looking for then you'll find very little of it here.

Martin Sheen and the ever impressive Robert Duvall are on fine firm, but half an hour of this film could have been cut and you'd probably not notice it, for me it's a film to catch every now and then, but as for purchasing, no way, it's good, but not that good.