The Deer Hunter (1978) is the latest member of our esteemed organization: Classic Movies Reviewed By This Blog Who Suck. However, Michael Cimino's alleged "masterpiece" is a terrible film even compared to some of the previous entries in this series. In this case, the film's one saving grace is its distinguished cast of up-and-coming stars. Everything else is obnoxious, dated and borderline unwatchable pap, stretched out over an unbearable 183 minutes.
The film tells the story of three Pennsylvania steel workers: Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken) and Steven (John Savage). We follow them through their day-to-day lives, Steven's wedding, their traumatic experiences fighting in Vietnam, and attempts to blend back into the real world. Michael emerges as the central character; we follow his efforts to reconnect with friends and his tentative romance with grocery clerk Linda (Meryl Streep), but it's clear that he's a changed man. Finally, he travels to Saigon to try and rescue Nick, who has fallen into a world of depravity - making his living playing a never-ending game of Russian Roulette.
At least Cimino has the courtesy to let us know the kind of film we're in for early on. We meet a group of mostly-interchangable meatheads who work together, drink together, hunt together, hang out together, attend wedding's together. There really isn't much to distinguish between the various individuals, and thus right off the bat we have a problem. I like the concept of the film - showing how a group of working class guys react to war - but the film doesn't pull it off in any sort of interesting way. To the extent that it makes any points, it does so in a painfully heavy-handed way.
The movie then commences with an interminable, boring wedding scene that would put Visconti or Coppola to sleep. At least the equivalent scenes in The Leopard and The Godfather serve something of a purpose in establishing or developing characters; here, we already know the characters (to the extent that they are characters), and nothing is gained or advanced from this long, long scene except a hint of the forthcoming De Niro-Streep romance - and a really lame bit of symbolism, as Steven's wife spells wine on his dress, jinxing their chances of "good luck" (gasp!). Basically, it's people drinking and dancing for going on fifteen minutes, dragging on and on for its own sake. Perhaps Cimino hadn't heard of an editor, or perhaps he just decided that he was a genius and he needed to indulge himself. Either way, it's boring.
The Vietnam scenes are equally awful. The intro to Vietnam is laughable; I don't mind being plunged into the middle of a scene if done well, but the way it's done is mind-bogglingly bad. We see a single VC soldier (just one? Come on) laughing as he throws a grenade into a shelter full of women and children, and then shoots a woman and her baby before being toasted by Michael, wielding a handy flamethrower (!). For such an "anti-war" film, its portrayal of the evil, gibbering, bloodthirsty Vietnamese, shooting women and children, forcing POWs to play Russian Roulette and spending all their time gambling and whoring, is no less reactionary or offensive than the "Yellow peril" flicks full of yellow-faced murderous Japs made en masse during WWII. We don't learn anything about Vietnam or war that hasn't been touched upon in a thousand better films. Throw in lots of liberally-used stock footage and you have a depiction of Vietnam that makes The Green Berets look like Platoon.
Granted, the movie does pick up a bit showing Michael's troubled attempts to blend back into civilian life; his tentative romance with Streep is really sweet and well-acted, as is his inability to reconnect with his friends, particularly the crippled Steven and testy Stan (John Cazale). (Nick's pre-departure scene, unable to answer questions from a bureaucrat, is another obnoxiously obvious symbol; given that, perhaps it's best we don't see much of him after that.) However, just as things are starting to get sort of interesting (or at least watchable), the movie takes an abrupt left turn at that point; we inexplicably return to Saigon for a final confrontation with Nick, a scene that seems airlifted in from another movie. Admittedly there's some tension to be had with the initial Russian Roulette game, but as it is used and reused it just becomes a tiresome, obvious symbol. The ending is just corny and mind-numbing in the extreme.
Cimino's direction is strictly kitchen sink, which means it's generally visually ugly and unappealing. And as mentioned above, his tendency to let scenes go on and on without point is rather aggravating as well. (I can only imagine how terrible I would find the infamous Heaven's Gate.) The cast generally does nice work; Robert De Niro gives a fine performance as the lead, a young Meryl Streep is lovely and loveable; John Cazale, John Savage, and Rutanya Alda do what they can with shallow characters. In the key role of Nick, though, Christopher Walken is rather unremarkable. It's surprisingly a more restrained performance than most of Walken's roles, but it's also not an interesting or well-drawn character, and the actor's best efforts don't amount to much.
In case you didn't get it: The Deer Hunter sucks. Other than a handful of good performances, it's a near-worthless film completely without merit, cinematic or otherwise.
Rating: 3/10
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