A film about friendship and hard fought wisdom gained at great sacrifice

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2005)

When The Deer Hunter was released back in 1978, I was in fifth grade and my father was a Vietnam vet. I grew up in a household where I was not allowed to watch Jane Fonda or watch Joan Baez when she sang on the Muppet Show. My dad was not a gung-ho warrior but instead, he never really spoke about Vietnam. This film defines the grim ironies of what it was to be an American in 1978. Our politicians led us down a tangled path of atrocities in Vietnam, Chile, Cambodia, and yes, even our own country. Ultimately, so many people's lives were destroyed in the process. The enduring friendship of these people in this film is the binding theme which is the "heart" of the story. However, each individual is forever changed by the Vietnam War. One loses his life, another his limbs and the third, his innocence. The rest of friends left behind in America are faced with a variety of bewildering circumstances. There are broken lives which may never be pieced back together. Ultimately, however, it is the love that these people feel and exhibit towards one another, despite sadness, hardship, pain or death, that saves the survivors and their loved ones in this movie.