Probably more effective in its time, but a good film nonetheless

Rating: 6/10 (31 May 2004)

In `The Deer Hunter', Christopher Walken and Robert DeNiro play friends from a small town in Pennsylvania who get sent to Vietnam, where they experience horrifying moments together. While the first act of the film shows us their lives within their town, and the second contains their war experiences, the third act gives us the aftermath of what happened to them after the war ended for the two.
What I observed while watching `The Deer Hunter' was indeed a decent film, however also a film that suffers from terrible pacing issues. A half hour wedding scene here, a twenty minute scene of guys clowning around a car there, and you have a film that not only could have used another `go around in the editing room, but a film that is nearly three and a half hours long. I think that my friends and I were all thinking it, but when we finally go through the wedding scene only to then talk by the car' for awhile, we all just kind of blurted out words akin to `I wonder how long THIS scene is going to be' or `Think I'll miss anything if I'm away for a few minutes?' Generally, that's not a great sign for a film, especially when the pertinent plot devices used within a scene can be shared with the audience in a third of that time.
Pacing aside, the film was well-written and featured an amazing and talented cast. Besides the aforementioned Walken and DeNiro, among them we have Meryl Streep, before becoming this generation's `grand actress', playing a small but important role as a woman torn between Walken and DeNiro's affections. The script was intelligent in that it supplied small yet integral aspects of the story in a subtle fashion. The action within the `second act' in Vietnam was the most horrifying  the seemingly non-stop scenes of Russian roulette were important to the story, but after awhile the tension and nauseating display became a little too much  Russian roulette scenes for five, even ten minutes? Sick, but effective in portraying that aspect of the horrors of this war. Twenty minutes plus was pushing my personal limit.
Certainly, none of these criticisms should deter anyone from seeing this film, it is a good film  just make sure to mentally and physically prepare for the disturbing imagery and the sheer amount of time spent watching this film  there are many films that exceed three hours that have minimal or no pacing problems, but `The Deer Hunter' is not one of them, so it isn't `easy.' While in general I thought this was a good film and watching The Deer Hunter' reminded me why I am a big fan of both DeNiro and Walken, unfortunately their excellent acting wasn't nearly enough to totally redeem the pacing problems I felt this film had. Unfortunately, when a film shows up on a `greatest films of all time' list and is backed up by several Oscars, a certain amount of expectation is going to precede it. `The Deer Hunter' did not meet my expectations, but it was a good film nonetheless and should be seen so one can decide its relevancy for themselves.
--Shelly