For a movie with so many themes, it doesn't feel like it's really "about" anything.

Rating: 7/10 (8 February 2016)

Working class steel mill workers, friendship, emotionally complex relationships, Vietnam, and Russian Roulette. This film tackles all these subjects with a pretty broad brush and makes no judgment. It's a groundbreaking film though certainly a letdown especially for those going in with the wrong expectations.
I've seen this film twice; once at age 15-16 and again at at 35. The first time I saw it, I was immensely disappointed, expecting some kind of PLATOON-style action war movie. After so much time being spent on the wedding, there's really only one action scene presented and it frustratingly cuts away just when the Viet Cong close in. What a missed opportunity it was to show some more De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage desperately gunning down hoards of enemies.
No, you're going to have to watch THE DOGS OF WAR or MCBAIN to see anything like that. It's disappointing that is is about as close as De Niro ever got to being an action hero, but this is just not that kind of film. I had heard it's a Vietnam War movie, but it's not. It's really a movie about Russian immigrant steel workers living a bleak existence drinking their lives away in some Podunk Pennsylvania town. It seems that the only meaning they have in their lives is deer hunting and their camaraderie, but even after coming back to this film I didn't catch much character development, especially around De Niro and Walken's characters. The war gives them something to look forward to and ends up shattering their lives.
Two decades later I see that this film (especially during the first hour) is more like one of those popular at the time 70's "slice of life" movies like FIVE EASY PIECES or the more recent GARDEN STATE, where we just watch people do things and randomly interact in a very mundane way. The only semblance of a plot comes with the war, the Russian Roulette, and the search for Walken's character. However all that maybe takes up 45 minutes of plot in a 3 hour movie. Peter Zinner may have been a legendary editor (though hacking up the U.S. release of KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and making an abortive attempt as a director with the horrible THE SALAMANDER) but here just lets scenes float way longer than they need to. The film would have worked just as well if that endless wedding scene was only 5 minutes long.
However, I must point out that the performances across the board are excellent and the emotional buildup to the climax is very tense, cathartic, and ultimately tragic. It's very hard not to get touched by the final death scene, which is among the best work of all involved. Unfortunately things unravel later on when it seems Cimino didn't know how to end the thing. Also you'll be hard pressed to find a film of that year with more captivating outdoor cinematography, which THE DEER HUNTER is worth a watch for even for just that reason.
I've seen a few of Cimino's films, trying to understand why he was seen as such a Hollywood prodigy through his career and given so many chances even after the disastrous HEAVEN'S GATE. I consider his best film to be YEAR OF THE DRAGON, a New York police movie that isn't explicitly an action movie, but is edited much tighter and with better character development than this film.