Powerful Examination of the Effects of the Viet Nam War on the American Psyche

Rating: 9/10 (24 May 2008)

Michael Cimino's Oscar-winning drama The Deer Hunter, examines the devastated lives of a few Viet Nam veterans and their friends and families back home. The story centers around Mike (DeNiro) a quiet man with a strong sense of responsibility and an ambiguous moral character. In his immediate orbit are his two closest friends - Nick (Walken) and Nick's young wife Linda (Streep). With the war over, Nick wants to put things right in his home town, but finds that his society may not have an easy place for him and his fellow POWs to come home to.
Through nicely integrated flashbacks, we learn who Mike and his friends are before and during the war. Nick, Mike and their friend Stevie were captured and forced to play Russian Roulette by their captors. The meaninglessness of life symbolized by this deadly game is an excellent dramatic device alluding to the war itself, and the clash of cultures that it involved. Each man's participation in the game would, to an extent, both literally and figuratively, determine the course of the rest of their lives, no matter how long or short.
The entire cast is excellent and Cimino gets exactly what was needed out of them all, but Walken and DeNiro are truly incredible. The two men not only have great on-screen chemistry, but yield performances which, for most actors, would be considered performances of a lifetime. Anybody who has ever questioned the talent of either of these two men should be forced to watch this film.
The story is not very highly embellished and will bore those with poor attention spans and/or limited ranges of emotion. The action sequences and special effects are few and far between - and entirely realistic. The soundtrack is virtually unnoticeable and never gets in the way of the story. The settings are lovely and provide an appropriate contrast to the disturbing story.
The Deer Hunter is a psychologically devastating examination of a traumatized nation, where those who participated in the war are completely aware in every waking moment of what was lost and those at home have been sold a huge pack of lies. As relevant to Americans of the Bush era as it was to those of the Nixon era, this film well deserves the awards and acclaim it has retained for the last 20+ years.
Highly recommended, but not for the timid.