Epic story about friendship and the effects of war

Rating: Null/10 (9 November 2012)

What we have here is a slow, thoughtful and intense drama done correctly. The film is a long one, with a running time of three hours, and its filled with scenes that just don't seem to end or to have any particular point. The wedding scene for example just seems to go on and on. In a weaker movie these kinds of scenes would bore the viewer, perhaps even make the film unwatchable. Not in this case. Because this isn't really a movie about the Vietnam war, like so many people seem to think. Admittedly the war part of the film is the most memorable and the one that people bring up most often, but the movie as a whole is more about the friendship between its main characters. The war is always there, certainly, but its point is to showcase how the terror of combat and the mental torture that follows affect people and how we all cope differently. Some of us manage to muscle through and go on to spend relatively normal lives. Some of us crack, however, and the film goes to great lengths to make us understand just how deep that single crack can go. How it can ruin the best of us.
But for us to understand we first have to understand the people that are put under this pressure. And that's why those slow scenes of wedding receptions, hunting trips and bar evenings are so important. They have this quality of realism. Like we could be right there next to them, sharing a joke or a drink. I'm sure there are some, who still get bored by this film, but I personally enjoyed each and every single shot. At times the film had almost a dreamlike quality, especially towards the end, reflecting the surrealism that is normal life after you've gone through war. The music was discreet, the scenery slightly blurry and nothing much was said, rather the mood was given time to build. We were given time to ponder and reflect.
Add in brutally good role performances by pretty much all of the main actors and you have a film that even Sergio Leone would be proud to call one of his own. The movie actually greatly reminds me of Once Upon a Time in America and not just because they share a main actor in Robert De Niro. The same mood is there, the same gripping touch of real life mixed in with dreamlike hallucinations and larger than life concepts that hide in the background.
This is a great film, one that everyone should see. It's subtle and thought-provoking, while still working both as a period piece and a character study. Masterful film-making at its best.