Francis Ford Coppola is one of the most iconic working directors in Hollywood. He is particularly the mastermind behind The Godfather trilogy. Nominated for multiple Academy Awards, these gangster movies remain some of the most revered movies of all time. Coppola’s impressive work also includes one-off films like The Conversation, which starred the late Gene Hackman. Coppola’s legacy is also living on through the work of his daughter, Sofia Coppola, who has helmed notable films such as Lost in Translation and 2023’s Priscilla.

This is not to say that everything Coppola has produced has been flawless. Last year, he infamously released the movie Megalopolis. Flopping at the box office, the Adam Driver-led sci-fi drama was heavily memed online and became the source of ridicule. Coppola even went on to “win” Worst Director at the Oscar spoof awards, the Razzies. Now, one of Coppola’s well-loved but deeply flawed films gets a middling accuracy rating from an expert.

One Former Special Forces Member Is Unimpressed With Apocalypse Now

He Still Likes The Movie’s Action Sequences

Apocalypse Now‘s war accuracy gets reviewed by a real-life former Special Forces member. Based on the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness, Coppola’s war epic is about a U.S. Army officer serving in the Vietnam War, who is tasked with ᴀssᴀssinating a Special Forces Colonel who has gone rogue. The Apocalypse Now cast includes Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford. It is now considered one of the greatest war films of all time.

In a reaction video with Insider, former U.S. Army Special Forces and Delta Force operator Bob Keller reveals his less favorable opinion of Apocalypse Now. While he admitted that this was a “classic movie” that helped inspire his own military service, he did not have a lot of good things to say about the accuracy of the selected scenes in the movie. One of the moments he analyzed was Captain Willard emerging from the water, which he called “another movie thing.“ He ultimately gave the sequence a 5 out of 10 for accuracy but implied he was being generous. Check out the full quote below:

I mean classic movie. Loved this as a kid, this is one of the reasons why I probably went into the military. So the guy’s kind of losing it because of what he’s seeing and what he’s had to do in his time being an SF guy. Do I relate to that? Not even close. Can that happen to someone? Absolutely. I mean that is, some people relate to war differently. So this is Captain Willard, and he is part of the MAGV-SOG. And he was sent to go find the colonel. They got to do some really cool stuff. Are they sending those guys to do ᴀssᴀssinations on Americans? Highly doubt it. So I would call no, that’s a straight up movie thing.

Coming out of the water, that’s like another movie thing. It’s like the coolest thing right. But if you were coming up a stream or coming up the river, it could have happened, yes, and he’s like camoed up, he’s got his face camoed. Absolutely, like if you’re in the jungle and you don’t want to be seen, like you want to have the right camouflage on. You don’t want any white showing. And going at night, 100%. Like you want to do everything at night. Unconventional warfare and doing stuff other than just shooting? Absolutely, that’s what those guys did. This is just basing this scene, not the whole movie, because the movie I think is an awesome movie. The scene, how it’s played out, I mean I give it a 5 just because it’s Apocalypse Now.

What This Means For Apocalypse Now

It’s Still A Classic, But The Comments Put A New Perspective

Keller’s lackluster opinions on Apocalypse Now put a small damper on the movie’s legacy. Notoriously self-confident, Coppola has touted his own war film as a masterpiece over the years, as have many others. Keller’s quote, however, puts a more critical lens on the film’s depiction of warfare and a soldier’s life. Even if it is entertaining, the movie is taking significant creative liberties in terms of wartime accuracy, indicating that some of its action should be looked at with a grain of salt.

Source: Insider