Rating: 
Summary: Worth each and every Oscar it earned
Review: And it did earn its Oscars. The Best Picture 1978, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken are 3 of the 5 total hunks of metal this film brought home.
The movie is a bit long at 3 hours, but it really does need to be that long. You are taken on a journey from small-town Pennsylvania to the jungles of Viet Nam and then back home, where everything is different for De Niro. And for Walken's character, things are definately not the same after his tour in Viet Nam.
This film came out when I was about 5 or 6 years old, so I am NOT going to pretend I saw it way back right after the war, etc, etc, my experience is through history books and other references, including veterans themselves. I cannot tell about the authenticity of the film, nor tell you I relate. I can say that this is a fantastic movie of people in the Viet Nam War, the common person in the war, and how what they did and saw changed them as people.
Very highly recommended, but ensure you make the 3 hours need to watch it front to back.
Rating: 
Summary: Deer Hunter...the best boring movie ever
Review: While this movie can easily put people to sleep, it is a testament to the Vietnam war. Apocalypse Now showed how the soldier found insanity in the jungle. Platoon showed how freindship and loyalty can be torn through conflict. Deer Hunter dealt with the real aspect of the war. It dared to say that the war destroyed America, while others said it only destroyed the soldiers. The begining, the wedding, is very Godfather like. It is there to show how a group of hunters can smile as freinds, and lose everything in war. The reason why this movie gets four stars, is because of Christopher Walken and the Vietnamese game of Russian Roulette. Gripping at its best, and a peice of visual and emotional artwork.
Rating:
Summary: Emotionally Shattering
Review: Words alone can not describe the emotional impact this film has had on my life. It is probably the saddest film I have ever seen. It tells the story of 3 buddies before, during, and after the Vietnam War. I recommend it without reservation. De Niro gives a strong and powerful performance as Michael. Walken and Savage give great supporting roles. I cant see why the academy didnt nominate Savage with a Supporting Actor Oscar. Streep acts beautiful in her first major role. The Deer Hunting scenes are so beautiful. The Russian Roulette scenes are renowed. Do yourself a favor and watch this film
Rating:
Summary: A Unforgettable Emontial Journey Of Love, War, & Friendship
Review: The Deer Hunter is one of those unconvential war films like Apocalypse Now or Born On The Fourth Of July that deals with the emontial hardships of the war and it's effects on the soldiers in the war. This is a very long, but fast moving film that deals with the hardships of war and the pains of the men who were lucky enough to come back alive. Robert De Niro gives a earth shattering performance that I think he borrows from his character in Taxi Driver. The Russian Roullete scene visually describes the terrors of Vietnam and shows what hell is. This movie is definitley not the best Vietnam War film, but it is the best film about friemdship and love during the turmoil.
Rating: 
Summary: boring
Review: i found this movie disapointing. i am a big deniro fan(who isn't)? this movie though is just boring and predictable. the cast is great, especially christopher walken, which almost upped it to two stars, but it was just such a terrible movie. i could almost see why this movie was conidered a landmark film when it came out, but now it just seems dated. having already watched great movies such as full metal jacket and platoon, i did not see the deer hunter, but i already knew the outcome. you knew that this was going to be an anti-vietnam flick, and you knew either deniro or walken or both were going to come back and would "not be the same." but this movie offers nothing. the statement it's trying to make is obvious before the movie even starts. there is no real action no real drama. and is there really anyone that actually likes the wedding scene. talk about long. it went on for about an hour and takes up about a third of the movie. you can make a point about small town friendship without taking an hour to do it. the russian roulette scene is considered the truly great part of this movie. but was this really the best way to depict the horrors of war? it sad really that it was the only remotely decent part of the movie. this is supposed to be an anti-vietnam movie, but it does not seem as if there is a whole lot of warfare going on. the vietnam war was horrible. we get it already. you can watch just about anyother vietnam movie to get the same thing. and the deer hunter is the worst and most overated of all of the vietnam movies.
Rating: 
Summary: You have to be in the mood to see this one
Review: This is an alright film, something worthwhile, but if you wanna see a war film that you are expecting to be a 23 year old Saving Private Ryan, skip it. However, if you want to see a long, slow-paced, but intresting film about an industrial Pennisylvania town adjusting to the Vietnam war, see it.
Rating:
Summary: Heart Wrenching Tale of Friends Dealing with Vietnam War
Review: I saw this film in a film theory class that I was taking and was completely blown away by it. This tragi-realist movie rings truer than almost any Vietnam War movie that I've ever seen. It tells the story of 3 friends, Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage, who take one last deer hunt before entering Vietnam.Many people might complain that the film is too slow and if you consider the superficial MTV-culture that we live in that might be the case, but the deliberateness of the first third only heightens the poinancy of what happens to these friends in Vietnam. This isn't your typical "American is bad" Vietnam movie. It shows a realistic portrait of what the war was like and what the cost of it was in real human lives. Plus the films takes twists that you won't see coming. The performances are incredible and credible across the board. De Niro and Walken quickly make us lose sight of their star personas and view them as characters. This is a true "must see" and should serve as an antidote to big budget emotionless war movies like Pearl Harbor. Completely worth the search to find.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificient story of friendship
Review: In Europe, when this film was released, it created a scandal. Some critics wrote it was a racist movie, others that it was a western which takes place during the Viet-Nâm war. Forget all of that. Above all, it is about a beautiful and moving friendship between two friends, in the purest American tradition. Nevertheless, I did not enjoy it as much as Apocalypse now because the period is not described accurately enough for me.
Rating:
Summary: Half a work of genius.
Review: 'The Deer Hunter' is a flawed film, but the first half is magnificent, for so many reasons. Future events are pre-empted, so that the violent noise and flames of the industrial plant look forward to the more harrowing inferno of Vietnam; or, of course, the idea of the deer hunt, the one-shot. The first half is so brilliant because it schematically isolates the various parts of an organic community that cohere to create that community. Here opposites complement each other to create a whole - work/play, woman/man, young/old, city/nature, Russia/America. The film emphasises the schizophrenia caused by the Vietnam war by showing how this community had previously reconciled two seemingly irreconcilable opposites - Americanness and Russianness; the immigrant and the nation; the individual and society. Cimino is not sentimental about this community - it is full of wife-beaters, drunks, liars, losers: there is a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction or failure. But is there anything in cinema more joyous than the friends joking, dancing, swearing, singing in the pub, or the whole of that intoxicating wedding sequence, one big lie covered up with music and drink? Two big lies, actually - with those haunting, Soviet-style images of the three boys going to Nam presiding over everything, already ghosts in this present. The second half is, for me, a failure. The first works because its symbolism is not detachable from its subject - the individual, family, town etc.: these are strong metaphors, but they exist in their own right, they can carry whatever weight is put on them. Everything is lovingly detailed, and through some brilliantly unshowy acting, true. But the Vietnam metaphor of Russian Roulette is thin and lazy, an excuse not to examine the war in the same depth. The early use of the roulette simply as a local form of torture is effective, but as a prolonged metaphor becomes silly. The performances stop being richly naturalistic and become more ACTORly. The film's portrayal of the Vietnamese is racist, but no more stereotyped than, say, Meryl Streep's dad. if the film can be compared to updated John Ford, than the first half is as complex and rich and ambiguous as 'The Searchers', while the second is the equivalent of all those faceless, whooping Indians.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing story and a great film
Review: The performances by Chris Walken and De Nero are career-making. This Vietnam adventure uses flashbacks to tell a disjointed tale of the adventures of four friends from a small U.S mid-west town. The critics didnt like the length of this film, which is over three hours, but if any scenes were to be cut out you would hear viewers scream for a restored directors cut anyway. Meryl Streep hams it up a bit too much here, a few years before she starred in Sophie's Choice (a fantastic war based film that is also too long) with Kevin Kline.
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