Review of The Deer Hunter (1978) by Movie G — 23 Aug 2011

The Deer Hunter is always a movie that has divided people. Some call it an absolute masterpiece, a brilliant study of the effects of war. Others call it an overbloated mess, long, pretencsious and full of itself. Somehow I fall somewhere in the middle. I'm not going to say The Deer Hunter is perfect. I can list about a million things it does wrong, but the thing is that for every one things it fails at, it has two things it succeeds at making it, while still problematic, a highly enjoyable drama that hits all the right buttons, just not with as much grace and perfection as one would hope out of a Best Picture winning film.

The Deer Hunter is about 3 friends, Mike, Steven, & Nick who all grew up together, and are soon heading off to fight in Vietnam. Set in 3 acts which consist of Steven's wedding, the war, and the coming home, The Deer Hunter is basically about the serious effects that war had on them, be it physical in Steven's case, mental in Nick's, and emotional in Michael's. This is all fine and dandy and works surprisingly well. At the time this was a pretty groundbreaking movie for dealing with such serious topics, and was Hollywood's first greatly acclaimed Vietnam war movie. Unfortunately it doesn't hold up as well today for a few reasons. Firstly, better movies have been made about the topic, most notably Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, and for the problems it has a film has.

First problem, and the most obvious, it's too damn long! Now 3 hours isn't really that long, and I've sat through longer movies and been fine, it's just that it moves incredibly slow and feels way longer than it should. 1 entire hour is devoted to Michael's wedding. This is where the idea comes in that people think it's a little too full of itself, it thinks we want to watch this, but in all honesty is shouldn't have been more than 20 minutes. But there are times when it works. The scenes where the characters are actually Deer Hunting (go figure) are all pretty long and drawn out, but they are handled so beautifully and have such an emotinal effect that I don't really care, and actually applaud director Michael Cimino for doing it this way.

Another problem I have, I'm not sure how others feel, is the editing. I'm aware that this is heavy nitpicking, but there are times when it just cuts so quickly and abruptly, cutting off sound from previous shots, and setting it up with tons of continuity errors. There's one noticeable shot at the wedding where it shows the band playing, then a split second later their instruments are all down and it has stopped. Is there anything wrong with jump cuts? No, but when it's done with the exact same camera, in the exact same spot with no sign that time has lapsed, it's just a little bizarre.

Another common problem people have with this film is how it treats the Vietnamese soldiers. In the movie they are seen as violent, heartless, savages. So what? They're a group of soldiers doing bad things, it's what some of them do. I don't blame this movie for being bad, in fact I praise the fact that it had the balls to do what it did with them, but I blame the people watching it. If you judge an entire race and culture on 4 men in one scene of a movie, then I don't know what's wrong with it. I'm sure if it was the Americans people wouldn't say anything, because they know that most people are good, so apply that here!

At times the dialgoue seems a little pointless to me. It has a lot of the talky scenes that don't really go anywhere, but I find they work for one reason. The whole movie is trying to show you how boring and mundane life is at home. Then it's trying to show you all this intense action, then show you boring again. I can at least partially understand from that how soldiers fealt at the time, struggling to adjust back into normal life, and for me it's a success in the long run, no matter how many times I was wondering how much longer it was.

Now for the good stuff. First of all, the acting is fantastic. Christopher Walken is the first one to usually get recognized for this movie, being that he won an Oscar for it and plays the crazy one, always the one people watch, but that doesn't meen that he's the only highlight. For me, this is DeNiro's most underrated performance. Just watch the Russian Roulette scene and se him pulling that trigger as he screams in hate, it's incredible. Meryl Streep is also fanastic, but when isn't she? Another noteable actor is John Cazale, one of the more underappreciated actors ever in my opinion. He's only given one scene to shine in this movie, but damn it's good. Just watching him on his knees, crying with a gun to his head is gripping, and the fact that he was dead just months later adds even more emotional pull. The only one who never jumped out for me was John Savage as Steven. I understad that he was surrounded by some of the most talented actors in history, but he could have at least caught my attention once.

Secondly, the film is quite beautiful. The entire thing was shot on location in real places, which adds a nice reality to it all, but it also just looks nice. The mountains of Pennsylvania are absolutely breathtaking, as are the jungles of Vietnam. Just to add to it, they are all captured fantastically by the cameras, and Mochael Cinimo really did a fantastic job with it all, especially considering he wasn't really a director before this, just a screenwriter. The music always stood out to me aswell. It's soft and tender and really accentuates the scenes, it's all good stuff.

In conclusion, The Deer Hunter is a great movie, just not a masterpiece. It may have it's share of failures, it it's successes outweigh them and make it worth viewing, as it is a treat for anyone who can stand a movie of it's longwinded nature. It's a must see for fans of the genre, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone else just to see what all the fuss is about it, and choose which side of the fight you're on.