This mind-screwing Vietnam flick may be a monumental triumph but, as anyone with even a passing interest in movies will tell you, it was a bitch to shoot. And while it was star Martin Sheen who suffered the heart attack, it was director Francis Ford Coppola who had the worst of it - the physical strain, mental stress and huge personal expense causing him to question his own sanity. With this in mind, Coppola's decision to return to Apocalypse Now with this revamped edition indicates he's lost none of his renowned drive and ambition, whatever his dismal recent output suggests.
Redux was crafted by sifting through the raw footage with genius editor and sound man Walter Murch and adding 49-minutes' worth of material. Chief among the inclusions is new footage with Kilgore (Robert Duvall) and his precious surfboard (fun but superfluous); an extra scene with the bunny girls (drawn out and at odds with the rest of the movie as it's not shot from Willard's perspective); a long sequence set on a French plantation (adding to the feeling that Willard and co are cruising back in time, but featuring a horribly didactic political debate); and more Brando as Kurtz (fascinating and thematically strong).
What we have, then, is a movie that's essentially the same - Willard snaking up river to exterminate Kurtz with "extreme prejudice", but now has more politics, context, camaraderie, waffle and even a little sex. Whether the already lengthy running time survives another 49 minutes is debateable and if we had to choose one version we'd have to stick with the 1979 original. But Redux is an intriguing, illuminating cut that demands to be seen at least once. It's so much better than 95 per cent of today's movies that it still cruises a five-star rating.
DVD Extras:
Trailer. Okay, so the distributors could argue that we get the bonus material in the movie itself, but they'd ducking the issue. In a perfect DVD world, we'd get Eleanor Coppola's staggering Hearts Of Darkness making of documentary included here, and maybe even a commentary or two. Or at least some interviews. Wouldn't it be nice, for example, to hear Coppola and Murch explaining why they included the previously deleted scenes this time round? And what footage they decided to leave on the cutting room floor? A major disappointment.
