Frightening, extremely real, and unusual, all the same excellent.

Rating: 9/10 (21 November 1999)

Cimino takes the new wave cinema approach together with his own unique, somewhat Kubrick-like style, and paints a picture that is frighteningly too real for words. The performances are 100% true, the photography of Zigmond is seamless - one senses a camera was planted into real life. The performances are always interesting, and never overdone. The casting is fantastic, each actor works to their extreme.
The lack of the usual Hollywood melodramatic approach and political correctness is extremely welcome here, as it gives the audience a lot of room for it's own judgements. The understanding of the subject matter is profound. The film shows what an American can expect to find fighting a foreign war, and how a man can become a foreigner for a long time after he comes home.