Rating: R
Genre:
War
Release Date: 11/20/2001
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time: 202 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
Francis Coppola had more than his share of production difficulties while shooting his epic-scale Vietnam War drama
Apocalypse Now, including disastrous weather conditions, problems with his leading men (
Harvey Keitel was fired after less than two weeks on the project and was replaced by
Martin Sheen, who suffered a heart attack midway through production), and a schedule and budget that quickly spiraled out of control (originally budgeted at $10 million, the film's final cost was over $30 million). But
Coppola's troubles didn't end when he got his footage into the editing room, and he tinkered with a number of different structures and endings before settling on the film's 153-minute final cut in time for its initial theatrical release in 1979. Twenty-two years later,
Francis Coppola returned to the material, and created
Apocalypse Now Redux, an expanded and re-edited version of the film that adds 53 minutes of footage excised from the film's original release. In addition to adding a number of smaller moments that even out the film's rhythms,
Apocalypse Now Redux restores two much-discussed sequences that
Coppola chose not to include in his original edition of the film -- an encounter in the jungle between Willard (
Martin Sheen), his crewmates
Chief (
Albert Hall),
Clean (
Larry Fishburne),
Chef (
Frederic Forrest), and
Lance (
Sam Bottoms) and a trio of stranded Playboy models on a U.S.O. tour, as well as a stopover at a plantation operated by French colonists
De Marais (
Christian Marquand) and
Roxanne (
Aurore Clement).
Apocalypse Now Redux received a limited theatrical release in August of 2001 after a well-received screening at the
Cannes Film Festival -- the same month that the film finally reached theaters in 1979, after a rough cut received a Golden Palm award at the
Cannes Festival.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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