Based on nvelist Joseph Conrad's book "Heart of Darkness," Apocalypse Now shows a stark tableau of war gone to the nth degree -- and that it can do only that. Set in Viet Nam at the time of U.S. involvement, it portrays a special agent (Sheen)'s campaign to find and kill an out-of-control U.S. officer (Brando), whose obsessions are depicted in vivid, deeply mesmerizing detail. The vieweer is led to grasp in a visceral way that any mission to kill can only spiral into total destruction. This movie lays to rest the idea of "containable war."