An Army veteran's take

Rating: 2/10 (27 December 2012)

My major gripes: too long (especially stupid wedding scene...which is Russian Orthodox..which most Americans can relate to, I'm sure..), cheap symbolism (wine on wedding dress=blood and whole "one shot" thing for shooting deer....yeah, I get it, thanks for attempting to be clever), poor character development, bad editing, bad scene transitioning (so we're deer hunting in PA....and then we're in Vietnam and De Niro is lying next to his dead LRRP team..maybe a basic training montage or something to establish how we got here?), obviously there was no military consultant for the film (HAIRCUTS?! I guess it was too much to ask an actor to change his hair for a movie in '78... and De Niro's facial hair?! clearly out of regs, no sense of military bearing among the "soldiers"), why is De Niro wearing his uniform around town every day after he gets back?(when I returned, I didn't want to even look at the damn thing), the script is terrible, and the ending is cheesy as heck (they'er singing God Bless America...at the end of a film about how much war sucks...OH I GET IT, THEY'RE BEING SARCASTIC! DERPA DER!) The roulette scene managed to hold my attention, yet was still a bit outlandish. I have no writing experience and could write a better script than this turd. Avoid this like the plague and instead re-watch Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, We Were Soldiers, or any other war film for that matter...even that piece of crap Hurt Locker.