Without purpose, without depth.

Rating: 1/10 (21 September 2017)

I first saw this film as a kid, one of many films that I saw at a far too young age. I was about 11. I thought it was boring back then. So I decided now as an adult to watch it again to get a better perspective on a film that is often lauded.
I don't see the big deal. The film starts off OK, we see a small country community, very working class. People are planning for a wedding, which we also see. We get a bit of an insight into the characters, but not a great deal.
Three of the men are going to Vietnam the next day. The next day? They are not serving soldiers. They have not been drafted and even if they were they would still receive training.
So the film flashes forward from the wedding where our three heroes try and speak to a Green beret who has walked in and has no time for their nonsense to Vietnam. We get our one and only battle scene, not much to it, helicopters fly over an empty village burns. One of our heroes goes berserk with a very non military looking flame thrower.
Have they been there a while, is it the next day? Maybe it's mentioned but I didn't care enough to notice.
The battle isn't even over before we flash to the next scene. Our heroes seem to be prisoners now. Very non military looking Vietnamese guard them poorly. They play Russian roulette. Why the guards would bother with this, I don't know. Surely they could just torture the Americans.
Our heroes manage to escape and we see what is probably meant as an attack against the war or the American military a helicopter pick them up but not assist 2 of them to actually get on. They fall off the landing gear and into the river.
The film is already sloppy at this point but it really starts to fall apart now. The Russian roulette has messed our heroes up and now we flash forward again back to the home town. The DeNiro (Michael) character walks around in his uniform, non regulation beard, promoted too heavily and too many medals and ribbons for one tour of duty.
We finish up with Michael returning to Vietnam to bring Nick (Walken) back to the USA. Nick is still playing Russian roulette games for big money in tournaments.
A lot of fuss is made over the Russian roulette games but they look comedic.
There just isn't any depth to this film. The characters also look too old for Vietnam era soldiers. We don't see any of their war time experiences, it's all Russian roulette. For a film that runs for 3 hours you expect more.
Over rated.