Viet Nam war theme, focus on before and after.

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 2003)

'The Deer Hunter' is one of those movies I had been aware of for a long time but only got around recently to seeing, thanks to my local library. I grew up during the period, almost was drafted out of graduate school into the Viet Nam war, and frankly did not look forward to yet another, albeit older, version of the conflict. Fortunately this movie is only briefly about the actual war, most of it is about the three friends, blue collar workers, and deer hunters, examining their lives and relationships before and after they served together in the 'conflict.'
SPOILERS - De Niro and Walken are the stars here, along with girlfriend back home, played by Streep. Excellent drama, but not one I'd like to see multiple times for entertainment. Central to the theme was the game of Russian Roulette, played by the Viet Cong captors, who placed bets as the prisoners tried to avoid blowing their brains out. Through De Niro's bold moves, they turned the guns on the captors and escaped. Traumatized by the war, Walken became AWOL, much later was found by De Niro, who tried to bring him home. Walken was still playing a form of the roulette game, sending cash back home to their wounded friend. After he blew his own brains out, De Niro went back home and took good care of the girlfriend. Hard-hitting, dramatic, sad.