Elk Hunter, The (1978)

Rating: Null/10 (25 October 2003)

I fell into the same trap as many others. 5 Oscars, must be good, I'll buy it! I wish I had saved my receipt. It was far too long. Some argue that the wedding scene was necessarily long for story and character development. But the main character of the wedding, Steven, isn't on screen very much once the wedding is over. Sure, he's in the Vietnam scenes, but briefly in comparison to the length of the wedding scene. I thought the whole point of the wedding scene being that long would be some touching reunion between him & his wife when they return, but that isn't the case and he's almost more of a toss in for continuity sake. My biggest beef with this film is the fact that the hunting scenes weren't shot in Pennsylvania, they were shot in Colorado. I'm pretty sure that even in 1978 people knew that there weren't any active glaciers in Pennsylvania. Secondly, none of the animals hunted & "shot" were deer. They were all, with the possible exception of the first one De Niro sees running across the road, ELK. That's right, they were all Rocky Mountain Elk. How on earth the Academy saw fit to give this Best Picture with such gross inaccuracies is beyond me. I think it was more of a post-Vietnam era guilt trip that swayed them to give that award. But given the other nominees I guess they were pretty hamstrung on one to pick. What was the nominating committee smoking? Putting two Vietnam movies up for nomination, one of which starred Jane Fonda?!?!? I guess that may be the real reason this got best picture, no one in their right mind would give it to a Hanoi Jane Fonda movie. Summary: Colorado hunting grounds not Pennsylvania; Elk NOT deer; too long; RENT don't buy.