A mixed bag...

Rating: 8/10 (5 November 2004)

John Cazale's last film is not the one he is remembered for, and perhaps it is best that way. Not that the film is necessarily bad, it's just very mixed. After viewing the film on DVD, the inordinate length of some scenes is enough to make one grateful for the PAL speedup. That the DVD released by Universal Home Video only has sixteen chapter stops, no subtitles, and a somewhat uneven audio mix, only serves to highlight the flaws in the film.
Don't think that I am knocking this film simply because I have a short attention span. I have seen enough slow and languid films to know that sometimes, a slow story can be an intriguing story. But in order to make the viewer sit through a slow and languid piece, you have to compensate for the pace with character development and tension. Granted, there is tension in The Deer Hunter, but it is uneven, and insufficient to keep the viewer interested.
As often happens in a film with an ensemble cast, the burden of keeping the story interesting falls upon its stars. This is one reason why The Deer Hunter would never be made in today's system. With some notable exceptions, the stars of today are just not compelling enough to hold interest. Robert De Niro demonstrates why he is one of the few stars to have won an Oscar for a role where most of his lines aren't in English. Even his bad films, the Rocky And Bullwinkle revival comes to mind, are a cut above some modern stars' best.
John Savage, Christopher Walken, and John Cazale all demonstrate that they can act circles around most. While Cazale died long before his time, Savage and Walken have since appeared in numerous pieces where they make many other actors look as if they're not even trying. Here, their performances make their characters memorable long after one has forgotten about the story. Which is just as well, because some of the scenes are so distended, and not in a good way, that it truly boggles the mind to hear that there was ever a four-hour cut. The two-hour cut could have told the story with as much detail.
I gave The Deer Hunter an eight out of ten. With a different cast, it would have been a four, but Robert De Niro, John Savage, Christopher Walken, and John Cazale all earn the film an extra point each. It's certainly worth seeing for the curiosity factor alone.