Shocking War Film

Rating: Null/10 (26 March 2004)

No film has touched me the way The Deer Hunter does. When I first saw it I didn't really give it a chance as it was something I had never seen before. But It intrigued me so years later I went back to it and have watched it since a dozen times as it is the most emotionally challenged film I have ever seen. Cimino creates these characters from nowhere, throws you into there lives and then makes you watch them preparing and going through Steven's wedding and seeing how their relationship is and to see how much of a special bond they all have with one another. The Deer Hunter must be one of a kind to explore this kind of story because Michael is mixed up even before he hit's Vietnam soil and Steven and Nick are afraid, so you ask yourself what were they trying to prove by going to Vietnam? I forget that they are even going off to Vietnam because by the time Steven's wedding is over you kind of lose yourself in the plot and become enthralled into the characters. I still don't get The Deer Hunter, and when I mean I don't get it, I suppose if there is a message to be shown here then where is it and what is it about. When I watch The Deer Hunter and thin of friendship and feel good about having the friends I have and always being there for them and it's to have a film like that and The Deer Hunter just doesn't make you feel depressed and happy at the same time it wakes you up to how Vietnam destroyed people lives not physically but emotionally and it wakes you up to how many dysfunctional people there can be, because all the characters are. De Niro is lost in his own world, Meryl Streep is confused to which man she loves, Steven is afraid to face up to the people he loves and come to terms with his disability and Nick is just a broken man and lost soul and for a director like Cimino to take you into these people's lives and make you think you actually know them personally and feel for them more than you should is a triumph in any mans eyes.