Good, very good, very long, but good.

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2001)

The Deer Hunter lopes along like so many films from the 70s, and at first, at least for me, I felt like this one was cut long simply so that it would fit the trend of 70s film lengths. However, if you can sit through the entire wedding reception scene and others like it, you'll start to see that Michael Cimino did in fact have a purpose. I think it can be best understood when you take into account how short most of the Viet Nam scenes are by comparison.
The point I finally got from the dragging first 2/3 of the movie was that these characters are people. Real ones, with real lives. It's a statement that's quickly said, but not easily made on film. Moviegoers know to (at least on some subconscious level) expect that the characters they watch are just that-- characters. The effect of this is that when a conflict is presented, there is only a certain amount of emotional involvement that a person is willing to forfeit to the characters. Michael Cimino's goal here seems to be to enforce the idea that these people have real lives. They're not over the top or "hollywoodified", they're just lives, and anyone who watches The Deer Hunter, if nothing else, will certainly feel like they've known these characters their whole life. So in that sense, he does succeed.
For me, The Deer Hunter, is really all about people, not Viet Nam. Some of these people happened to go there, and they're lives were derailed because of it, but what makes it important is the fact that it happened to these people and not random soldiers. You're thinking about these specific people and what they're going through when you watch this movie. If Michael Cimino was making a political statement of some kind I missed it, and that, combined with the fact that the vast majority of the picture doesn't take place in Viet Nam, causes me to believe that this is not a Viet Nam movie as so many seem to classify it.
Whatever it is, it's well executed. The cast is first rate. Christopher Walken of course won an Oscar for his role, and Deniro, Streep, & Savage all became their characters to that Nth degree necessary to make the slow pacing of the first part worth while. So while I think it is often very shallowly classified as a Viet Nam movie (which means what exactly, anyway?), it is nevertheless an outstanding film.