A Different Type of War Movie

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2019)

The Deer Hunter is a different war film than most. There aren't any battles or last stands or any of the typical war games. Instead, it is a look at the people involved and a look into a particular piece of culture associated with the Vietnam War. Clocking in at over 3 hours, this felt like a long movie to me. Parts of it were overlong (like all the pre-deployment stuff, particularly the wedding) and other parts were long enough to get the viewer understand the gravity of the situations that are unfolding on screen. The length of the film worked both for and against it. There is some cheesiness that I didn't enjoy like the random breaks into song, specifically the "God Bless America" at the end came off a little too propaganda-ish for me. However, what carries the film is the psychological effects the war has on the characters and how compelling the Russian Roulette scenes are. Both of these are mostly products of the actors. De Niro, Walken and some of the Vietnamese characters are fantastic. The decision to focus on Russian Roulette is also an interesting one because it's one of the only things that can compare to war in terms of limits of the human experience. The stakes are so high already but when it's put on top of war it becomes something else entirely. The climax of the film is one of the darkest that I have seen. There is also something to be said that this film was made not when Vietnam was a memory like most films we know but instead while it was still a relatively fresh scar on the American populace.