Pretentious, meandering nonsense.

Rating: 4/10 (26 July 2008)

If any film goes around in an ever decreasing circle, it's this pretentious effort from Cimino. The title is misleading for starters. If I see a movie called The Deer Hunter, I want to see DEERS. Lots of them. Instead we are given pointless scenes of war and weddings that do nothing but get in the way of the deer scenes. The deers in this movie are particularly lovely. Grazing and galloping all over the place. Nasty Robert De Niro nearly kills one but it psychically tells him not too and it's all OK. This film could be better if edited down to just the deer scenes and we can all enjoy it without blood and guts getting in the way of the light and enjoyable stuff.