This was Best Picture in 1978?

Rating: 6/10 (14 December 1999)

It's not even the best Vietnam film of 1978, which of course was Apocalypse Now. The Deer Hunter is a deeply flawed examination of the lives of three Pennsylvania steelworkers who enlist, serve in 'Nam, and suffer the consequences. This is a great film when the actors are allowed to take centre stage: Robert De Niro was becoming America's greatest film actor, Christopher Walken was establishing himself as a brilliant young talent, and even the woman I love to hate, Meryl Streep, delivered a stunningly nuanced performance. The supporting cast is near flawless, and it's always a delight to see Shirley Stoler in any film, even when she's playing a Serbian mama.

The Deer Hunter suffers when director Michael Cimino's need to make a statement and screenwriter Deric Washburn's need for a cinematic metaphor overwhelm what could have been a terrific straightforward story. Cimino's recurring use of the hunting theme is totally over the top, especially when the Serbian church music swells in the background as De Niro stalks his prey. The symbolism in The Deer Hunter is unnecessary and so in your face as to be a major distraction. As for Washburn, all one can say is that he obviously never met a Vietnamese he didn't hate. To say his depictions of Vietnamese are racist is perhaps an understatement: they are shown as either brutal butchers who have nothing better to do than torture prisoners and shoot civilians, or jabbering idiots who gamble endlessly on the other overworked symbol of the film, Russian Roulette. The fact that The Deer Hunter was shot in Thailand--an American ally to the end of the Indochinese Wars--makes me guess that the Thai crew and actors were more than happy to present their Communist neighbours to the East as maddened animals. All the better to keep Thailand within the realm of American national interests, I imagine.
By all means see this film for De Niro and Walken. Try and ignore the sound and the fury, and focus on the brilliance of their performances. Soak up the beautiful images captured by Vilmos Zsigmond, and imagine what could have been a truly stunning statement instead of a pretentious and offensive failure.