Apocalypse Now ****

Well, the great journalist, author and gadfly David Halberstam just arrived about 10 years too soon and to celebrate my gain and your loss, I’ll break custom. I’ll take a request.

Dave would like me to look at his favorite movie about Vietnam, “Apocalypse Now.” No Martini’s for this one. Mai Tai’s all the way, baby. I’m on my forth as we speak.

Is Apocalypse the perfect movie? Absolutely not. Brando almost single handedly took care of that. But you just have to sit back and appreciate a director who wants it this bad. This may be the single most ambitious movie ever made. You’re talking big time when even Orson Welles has to give up on a project. And God Bless Him, Coppola nearly pulled it off.

If you want to know why I complain about guys like James Cameron and soulless movies like Titanic, check this one out. If you’re going to shoot the moon and try to make the greatest movie ever, this is how you do it, sacrificing your bankroll and sanity at the same time.

Coppola’s made better movies (The Godfather) and worse movies (One from the Heart), but nothing is as explosive and enthralling as this. Even the bad moments are thrilling.

The best way to describe Francis Ford Coppola here is to take a young Orson Welles and inject him with the DNA of Che Guevera, Pablo Picasso and Joseph Stalin.

Let me get the weak points out of the way early because I don’t want to dwell on them. First, the screenplay is all over the place. Coppola is a fine writer when he has a steadying influence with him like he did in the first two Godfathers and Patton. John Milius is many things in the world, but a steadying influence is not one of them.

Second, he used a lot of young actors and their inexperience shows in their inconsistency.

Third, Brando. What the hell. The character from Heart of Darkness is a lean hungry type. Brando got the hungry part down. He’s about the size of a Ford Caravan here and despite the fact that’s he’s about the only one not to get malaria from the cast, he’s sweating like he has the illness. On top of all that, there is a difference between adlibbing and not knowing your damn lines.

Aside of that, it’s just amazing.

The basic story, if I can try to sum it up (not an easy task here), is that Coppola wanted to try and do what many (including Welles) have failed to accomplish – make a film version of Joseph Conrad’s epic novel “Heart of Darkness.” Coppola’s take here is to transport the setting from the Congo to the jungles of Vietnam. Aside of that the story is basically the same, a soldier sent to take out this maniac hiding in the jungle, trying to start his own tribe, placing himself as a god.

Take that starting point and add the jungle, people going insane, natives, sea creatures, nude playmates, a great soundtrack, guerrilla war, exploding sets and anything else you could possible want for a Saturday night.

Plus, and this is the beautiful part, the film has a point. Through the insanity, Coppola tries and damn near succeeds in capturing the madness of Vietnam – the war that broke all conventions. I asked Dave about it’s accuracy in theme and he said it wasn’t far off.

If you’re up for a double feature, check out the documentary about the making of the movie. It’s almost better than the movie itself. How Coppola let his wife conduct all these interviews and shoot all this inside film is beyond me?

Overall, the film is not as muscular and faultless as, say, Lawrence of Arabia, but after finishing this, I don’t think you’ll care. Another Mai Tai?