De Niro at his peak

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2002)

The Deer Hunter is a very powerful and haunting film, with images and scenes that will stay with you long after you have finished watching it. Robert De Niro puts in arguably his finest performance. This was made at a time when he wouldn't appear in just any old film, and he seemed to have a knack of picking classic films to appear in. It would be unfair to expect every role an actor played to be a classic, but to be honest the Robert De Niro of today seems a million miles away rom the Robert De Niro that appears in The Deer Hunter. Everyone thinks of the Russian roulette scene when they think of this film, and its probably be mentioned in most of the comments here, but I don't think I've seen a more powerful, amazing and realistic performance than what De Niro does in this scene, he's quite simply bloody fantastic, what an actor. Also of course this wasn't a one man show, Christopher Walken deservedly won an oscar for his role here. Meryl Streep is brilliant, actually the whole cast are. Sadly this was John Cazale's last perforance, he died shortly after filming, at least he left us with this last great appearance in film. The director Michael Cimino made an amazing film here and its baffling he's never come close to making a decent film since. Robert De Niro, you're simply the best. *** 10/10 ***