Every Francis Ford Coppola Movie Ranked Worst To Best

The spiritual successor to Apocalypse Now, Gardens of Stone casts James Caan as war veteran Clell Hazard, who is stuck in a job he doesn't want, with people he doesn't take to, in a war he can't help but hate and fail to understand.

Coppola's war drama is an interesting assessment of loss and the futility of war, sporting a great turn from Caan and co-stars James Earl Jones, D. B. Sweeney and Anjelica Huston, but is in its big moments lost to its heavy-handed sentimentality and stilted storytelling.

The heart is there, as its searing take on the unjustifiable nature of the Vietnam conflict, but Gardens of Stone lacks Coppola's subtly and therefore feels both forced and repetitive.