In 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, Captain Benjamin Willard is resting in his hotel room, waiting for a mission to be given to him by the United States Army. A mission that no one else has ever been given before. The mission is to travel upriver to assassinate a colonel, who’s gone AWOL and acts like a demi-god to a group of tribal natives in the jungle. Taking the mission for what it is, Willard travels upriver along with a ragtag group of American soldiers, some of which are called by their nicknames.

Along the way, several obstacles get in their way of the mission including a deadly encounter with a tiger and heavy enemy fire at a strategic bridge. As Willard nears the end of his mission, he soon finds himself reeling in the horrors and sanity of war itself as he confronts the colonel face to face in which Willard’s true nature begins to emerge slowly.