The only perfect movie ever made.

Rating: 10/10 (20 June 2004)

Why do I say this movie is perfect? If you pay attention through the terrific acting and the devastating drama you'll not only be blown away by the characters and the story, but you'll realize that every scene was absolutely necessary - and absolutely on target. It might not seem that way for the first half of the movie, but when it's over, there's not a scene you would or could delete. Necessary for what? Necessary for understanding how the 3 very different friends handled the stresses and horrors they faced in Vietnam.
De Niro the loner: socially uncomfortable, even awkward, but with a strong, primitive sense of honor and clarity - ready to face what comes. John Savage, the opposite: dependent on civilization and his friends for comfort and for his sense of self - needing the courage supplied by a last-minute marriage to give him strength for what's coming. Christopher Walken with a foot in both worlds, but not completely of either world: the only other person De Niro will hunt with - but he prefers the trees to the killing; the socially deft yet unable to commit love interest to Meryl Streep. The character of each is fired in the kiln of a brutal, sadistic Vietnam, and who they were inexorably predicts who they become. You won't find it done better, or ringing more true.
There are other highlights, as well. The transition from the quiet, melancholy bar scene on the night before they leave for Vietnam to mid-assault, complete with roaring helicopters and plumes of napalm fire, rates as the best scene cut I've ever seen. Not a jump out and scare you cut, but a brutal juxtaposition of arguably the most and least human of human activities. The hopelessness of the common people in war is poignantly depicted by the exhausted, destitute refugees trudging in endless lines down dusty roads while frighteningly impersonal metal monsters, chuk-chuk-chuking their rotors, pass scant yards overhead. From peace to war, from touching tenderness to fierce determination, this movie is simply an amazing statement of what humanity is about.
Sadly, Cimino has not been able to duplicate his directorial brilliance. But what's left to accomplish when you've produced a masterpiece like this?