Lots of atmosphere, little story

Rating: 5/10 (4 October 2005)

I generally like movies dealing with the Vietnam war. Several of them, like "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon", and "Apocalypse Now" I consider to be true classics. I had heard many good things about "The Deer Hunter", and thus I had quite high hopes. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met.
"The Deer Hunter" focuses on how the Vietnam war changes the lives of three all-American friends, Niko (Christopher Walken), Michael (Robert DeNiro) and Steven (John Savage). They live relatively happy, normal lives in a small American town, then get sent to Vietnam, where they become heavily traumatized (to say the least) and upon returning to the USA, realize that nothing will ever be the same again.
That's certainly a relevant and interesting story for a movie, and when "The Deer Hunter" first came out I can understand that it must have hit like a bomb since it dealt with a theme that most people weren't prepared to face just yet, and it does so in a pretty outspoken manner. More than twenty-five years later, though, I can't help but feel that it's not really such a good movie.
The first problem is the pacing. The movie weighs in at about three hours, but there's just not enough happening to justify that running time. The director spends an inordinate amount of time on scenes that are merely meant to establish the atmosphere instead of developing story or characters. During many of the sequences, either nothing or something very mundane happens. Yes, I understand that the main characters are supposed to be normal American boys so many of the things they do are mundane, but Cimino is way overdoing it here.
The slow pacing is even more jarring given the fact that the movie's story isn't told very well. It's not very coherent, there are some rather large leaps in time during which it's left totally unclear what happens to the characters, and some of the things make very little sense (e.g. Walken's character surviving dozens of games of Russian roulette...while that's not impossible, it's very very implausible). Some of the time spent on fleshing out the atmosphere could and should have been used to improve the flow of the story.
That being said, the movie definitely isn't without its moments. The Russian roulette scenes are spine-chilling and really deserve the legendary status they have achieved. The acting by DeNiro and Walken is great as well, and the music is beautiful and fitting. Unfortunately, Meryl Streep and John Savage are a lot less convincing. Streep is melodrama at its worst here, and Savage overacts heavily, if you ask me.
Finally, it's a bit of a shame that the movie takes such a one-sided look at the Vietnam war. It only looks at the effects of the atrocities committed by the VC on the Americans, not at the validity of the war as a whole or the role of the USA. You'd think that after being heavily traumatized, the three boys might at least become a bit angry with the USA for sending them into such a senseless war, but instead the United States are glorified in the cringe-inducing final scene. I understand that the time wasn't right for a real analysis of the Vietnam war, but the approach taken here (evil VCs traumatize innocent American boys) seems to be a bit too simplistic.
So, in the end that leaves me very disappointed with this movie. While it's certainly a relevant movie about a relevant subject, I don't think that subject was handled all that well. A couple of brilliant scenes and some good acting IMHO fail to make up for a really slow pace, a so-so story, and a very one-sided look at the Vietnam war..
**1/2 out of *****