Review of The Deer Hunter (1978) by Sagaciousfrank . — 07 Jan 2017

'The Deer Hunter' is another one of those oldies that damn near everyone claims is a 'classic', which then seems to imply that anyone who disagrees with this 'incontrovertible' consensus is automatically and unquestionably wrong and must surely only enjoy watching Michael Bay movies.

One cannot help wonder why such a long, bloated, boring mess of a film scores so highly amongst both film critics and audiences, past and present. Certainly, some of those who do like it would probably say that this is undeniable proof of it being a "good film" or indeed "classic". I would say that it is more a symptom of widespread unquestioned groupthink, and that people who watch it amd say they like it do so because, for one reason or other, they don't want to go against masses of popular opinion. Either that, or huge scores of people just have horribly bad taste.

Because I unreservedly fail to understand what is so good about a film that squanders a talented cast amidst a threadbare plot and characters that barely develop within the poorly paced (approximately) three hour long run time. And what (little) plot and character developments there are, is so poorly and sloppily executed, that they amount to more or less nothing in the end. Personally, I didn't care one iota about the characters or story in this badly edited and directed disaster.

If anything, the 'Deer Hunter' is evidence that Robert Dear Niro starred in some stinkers way back then in his hayday when he was lauded and (to some extent) overrated as one of the world's greatest actors, a view which has since been undermined in recent years by an acting career in continual decline due to a string of bad roles, film choices, and performances. Well, you can add this alleged 'classic' to his ever growing list of execrable silver screen title roles.