10 Films Where Villains Are Introduced In Unique Ways
6. Colonel Kurtz - Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is one of the greatest war movies of all time, elucidating the reality that "war is hell" perhaps better than any other film of its kind.
Its true villain may well be the very soul of man itself, but in tangible terms this is embodied by Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a decorated U.S. Special Forces officer who has gone rogue in Cambodia, and who Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with exterminating with extreme prejudice.
The genius of Kurtz's presentation in the film is that he's kept off-screen for the first 85% of it, yet the stories of his legend so persuasively build him up as a mythic, larger-than-life figure.
When Kurtz makes his brief appearance at the end of Apocalypse Now, he's also largely shrouded in darkness, which while initially a practical decision to accommodate Marlon Brando's unexpectedly ballooning weight, ultimately only accentuates his status as a spectral enigma.