This is the pinnacle of Cinema.- Budget: 15 Million, length: 3 hours, Oscars 5

And boy has this aged incredibly well! 1978 and still utterly gripping and compelling. Is it a masterpiece? No. However to conceive something so bold, daring and powerful is a remarkable achievement. A group of work colleagues and friends from Pennsylvania have their lives irrevocably changed by the Vietnam war. The classic microcosm of portraying small lives to create a scale of grandeur. These steelworkers weren't just representing themselves, but also the idealisms of America at that time. It's a one-sided affair, whether you view that as a detriment is entirely up to you. It does not hinder what is being shown. This is all about the character development, their emotional and physical changes through all three acts. Establishing their close bonds in the first act, putting their survival skills to the test in the second and then dealing with the psychological wounds in the third act. It's the perfect structure. The first act is easily the weakest. Thirty minutes of a wedding ceremony where people are Cossack dancing to the Tetris theme tune feels pointless, could've easily established the friendships in ten minutes. Aside from that, I thought this was pretty darn excellent. Robert De Niro holds the entire film together. Christopher Walken explores his wide emotional range of acting, he was terrific. Even a young Meryl Streep was incredible. Michael Cimino's direction was exhilarating, particularly during the war scenes. Shots were extensive, he took his time with the story and the characters. Then we get to the Russian Roulette scenes. Wow. Never seen anything quite like it. I was on the edge of my seat. Such a simple premise to include in a war film which guarantees thrills and fear. The final roulette scene was gut-wrenching. Captors betting on their survival, it really conveys how chaotic Saigon and the rest of Vietnam became during the war. Descending into a hysterical nightmare. A 3 hour behemoth has never passed by so quickly. Close to perfection, but not quite.

As a whole, The Deer Hunter feels less like a war focused film; instead, Vietnam and the war serves as a backdrop and an influence on the three main characters at least. This is important to note up front, because this makes The Deer Hunter an interesting study of the main characters before, during, and after the war.The beginning of the movie is long and slow, but it works to show the details of Mike, Nick, and Stevie. We get a good idea from his wedding and the circumstances of his bride, Angela's, pregnancy that he is a naive, but faithful and well meaning young man, who sees a big future ahead of them. Nick shows himself as an optimistic romantic, looking to work in the best of his friends' actions in the hunting trip and at the same time, play by Mike's rules. He also spends much time showing how much he cares for Linda, and openly comments about how he loves the small steel town he lives and works in. Mike, on the other hand, is much less of a romantic, and despite his naked run after the wedding, is shown to have a set of rules he lives by, and this includes his dedication to his friends, and the promise he makes to Nick to bring him home.Being in Vietnam changes things, especially the russian roulette scenes. Stevie, with his emotional naive nature, handles it poorly and winds up in a cage full of water and rats because he misses his head with the bullet. Mike, with his strict rules and self compass, fares better because he is the one who can steel himself against death, and ultimately is mostly responsible for their escape. He tries with Nick, but... Nick can't handle it. Having to play russian roulette against Mike while being encouraged by Mike to do it for their escape breaks him, and this impacts his portrayal from then on.By the end, Stevie is paralyzed and missing both legs, Mike is living with psychological trauma from both his experiences in war, and also the results of his attempt to rescue Nick, who was playing russian roulette professionally in Vietnam. Being forced to do it by Mike has left him in a broken state, and when Mike comes to rescue him, he blows his brains out in a russian roulette match in a disturbingly tragic way. "One shot" indeed. The line shows just how far he had fallen from before, and how much spite he had for Mike inside for the entire experience. Despite Mike's best efforts, he couldn't bring Nick back, even if he technically kept the promise and brought him home. That ending sort of broke my heart too, and I think it was a great way to hammer home the emotional message of the movie. Good movie overall. Would recommend.

Just got finished watching this movie for the first time ever. For years, I had heard nothing but great things about "The Deer Hunter", such as it's a masterpiece, a classic, etc. Because of this, I went into this film with high expectations and was sorely disappointed with what I had seen."The Deer Hunter" is one of those films that has one (maybe two) fantastic scenes and the rest of the picture is complete rubbish. A similar film is Inglorious Basterds (another war epic) with the opening scene at the farm being terrific but the rest of the film is just awful. In this sense, The Deer Hunter reminded me a lot of Inglorious Basterds. The Russian Roulette sequence in the Vietcong hut is absolutely breathtaking- the acting is high caliber, the tension is through the roof, the cinematography perfect. This scene is one of the best in film history. However, this one scene cannot cover the other, various issues that plague the film such as meandering plot, useless and overlong (way overlong) wedding scene, annoying characters, unsatisfying ending, choppy editing (Oscar for Best Film Editing, seriously?), and unwarranted three hour run-time. The entire first hour is a poor and overlong build up to the fantastic Russian Roulette scene in Vietcong hut. After this scene, movie goes nowhere for another 2 hours.I understand this was the first Vietnam movie to come out in the wake of the Vietnam war. As such, it struck a chord and was a big deal in 1978. However, outside of one scene I cannot say that I really found this to be an enjoyable or even a thought-provoking war movie like Platoon (1986) or Full Metal Jacket (1987). Ironically enough, the first Vietnam movie to be made is the one that had the least impact, at least for me. 5/10 stars for the Russian Roulette scene only.