In My Dictionary of Cultural Literacy

Rating: 10/10 (23 October 2006)

The lighting is bad but otherwise this is a must see for everyone on the planet. I was 17 when it first came out; I didn't get it. Watched it again 10 years ago and it still haunts me. I practically PRAY for the characters in the movie when I think about it, and I'm a Unitarian! Wonderfully depressing. De Niro, Streep, Walken are, uh, haunting. (Why does IMDb insist I write 10 lines? I'm a concise guy!) Watch it, you won't be sorry. Guaranteed. No idea why anyone rated it less than 10. If you were alive in the U.S. during the Viet Nam war, or when the U.S. steel industry crumbled, or you want to get one rendition of how miserable a conflation of those experiences were, watch this. Perhaps one or two of the scenes are over the top, but I still have to round up to 10.