A quite unique experience

Rating: 10/10 (25 July 2001)

The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece. Not only because a great cast like Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken do such a great, highly believable acting job (which also is due to Michael Cimino's excellent directing) but also because the story about those people touches you so directly. Simple small town people with friends and family and rituals and traditions like we could have them, too. Like when we get to participate at length a wedding party, get to know the five men and their women, the focus becoming stronger on the two unlike brothers, Michael and Nick Vronsky (played by De Niro and Walken), who do share their affection for the same woman, Linda, played with great feeling and freshness by Meryl Streep. The five men enjoy their ritual of occasional deer hunting, presented in a touching scene when they quarrel over a banality, but it shows who is seriuos about himself and who isn't. And when the Vietnam War begins, it's only Michael and his brother Nick, and their friend Steve (gripping performance by John Savage), who go to fight for their country. This is when it get's uncomfortable. The psychological pressure, the damage to their souls and their all over health the audience is going to witness is undescribable. It's not a horror movie, but a psycho-thriller for sure.
A perfect portrait about what Vietnam did to those three small town men, that we got to meet (like it used to be in the good old movie times, hint, hint!) and feel for and therefore get touched in a way you hardly get touched without a lot of tear-quenching, boo-hoo, violin-impregnated slo-mo-crap nowadays. This is not a war movie at first, this is a gripping drama both men and women will enjoy to watch. When I first watched this movie, I was probably too young to grasp all of its depth and meaning. But it has a way to reach out to you you hardly see again. In it's very own way it will grow on you.