The major theme artfully threaded through Coppola's film is the hypocrisy of United States involvement in foreign wars. In Apocalypse Now, Coppola highlights the irony of the savage and primitive behavior of the American forces.
Without taking an anti war approach, Coppola is able to capture the atrocities of a war fought by the US in the name of democracy and freedom.Coppola clearly depicts the death and destruction that result directly from US involvement. Instead of helping innocent civilians, American troops kill them. They are strangers in a strange land, yet they act as if they own it, staking out territory and firing without provocation.
The biggest form of hypocrisy is demonstrated through Willard's mission. In the midst of scores of senseless killings, the U.S. military is wasting energy and lives on killing one of its highest-ranking military officials. While Kurtz may well have gone insane, it's not clear why killing him is a priority when U.S. troops and Vietnamese civilians are dying. Moreover, since the military seems to encourage assassination in war, as evidenced by Willard’s assignment, we may question why Kurtz is demonized for killing two people who may have been working against the United States. Willard points out a number of other hypocrisies in his narration. For instance, after killing the Vietnamese peasant in the sampan, he reflects, “We’d cut them in half with a machine gun and give them a Band-Aid. It was a lie.” When Willard kills the woman, the others’ perception of him changes, yet Clean is not criticized for shooting preemptively and killing an entire family—because he was following protocol.
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