The Deer Hunter [R]

In a steel town in Pennsylvania, three workers and close friends are drafted to fight for their country in Vietnam. Before making the journey Michael, Nick, and Stevie celebrate at Steven’s wedding and then go on a deer-hunting trip where they promise each other to keep each other. The next time the boys are reunited is in a POW camp where survival seems impossible and the physical, mental, and emotional horrors of war threaten their friendship. 

I have a feeling the point of this immaculately long movie was staring me in the face, but for the life of me I could not see it. Whilst being a really streamlined and historically questionable representation of the Vietnam War, The Deer Hunter was, to me, a really boring movie that was way longer than it needed to be and filled with characters that I couldn’t emotionally latch onto. I admit there are some very lovely things about this film and it did stir up some emotion within me, but ultimately I just didn’t see the point of this movie at all and there are other things in the world that could have been a better use of my time and energy. 

In a steel town in Pennsylvania, three workers and close friends are drafted to fight for their country in Vietnam. Before making the journey Michael, Nick, and Stevie celebrate at Steven’s wedding and then go on a deer-hunting trip where they promise each other to keep each other. The next time the boys are reunited is in a POW camp where survival seems impossible and the physical, mental, and emotional horrors of war threaten their friendship. 

I just don’t think that war movies in general rub me the right way, so let’s keep that idea in mind when I express my views on this film. There’s not really a plot to speak of, the entire thing is character-driven instead, which really limits the movie and its events. We only get to see things as they happen to or from the perception of all these central characters, namely Michael, and in terms of the depiction of the war, this caused the movie to be labelled as a hate film with historical distortions upon its release. I wouldn’t mind so much if the characters were people I could like and emotionally attach myself to, but as it happens they aren’t and therein lies the problem. 

Some emotional responses are stirred up in certain places, like the famous Russian roulette tension in the POW scenes, the complicated romance of Michael and Nick’s betrothed, Linda, and the guilt and sadness when we see what happens to Stevie and Nick. These feelings are heightened by the beautiful soundtrack by Stanley Myers, the inspiring cinematography of the Pennsylvanian mountains, and the incredible performances from the central cast, and I give credit where credit is due here because it’s these things that made the movie compelling enough to keep myself from throwing in the towel altogether. But ultimately, I just found this movie to be boring and unnecessarily long. 

Starring Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, George Dzundza, Chuck Aspegren, Shirley Stoler, Rutanya Alda, Pierre Segui, Mady Kaplan, Amy Wright, Mary Ann Haenel, Richard Kuss, Joe Grifasi, and Meryl Streep, The Deer Hunter is a definitely an epic, but just not one that I could see the point of. Filled with action, war, romance, drama, and friendship, I suppose it’s worth seeing because it’s a film that made some noise in cinematic history, but the only reason I sat down to watch it is because it’s in ‘The Book’, and I definitely don’t think it’s a film that I’ll be watching again.