Product Details

• Released on: 2002-01-02
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC, Import
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 182 minutes

Amazon.com Essential Video
Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, The Deer Hunter is simultaneously an audacious directorial conceit and one of the greatest films ever made about friendship and the personal impact of war. Like Apocalypse Now, it's hardly a conventional battle film--the soldier's experience was handled with greater authenticity in Platoon--but its depiction of war on an intimate scale packs a devastatingly dramatic punch. Director Michael Cimino may be manipulating our emotions with masterful skill, but he does it in a way that stirs the soul and pinches our collective nerves with graphic, high-intensity scenes of men under life-threatening duress. Although Russian-roulette gambling games were not a common occurrence during the Vietnam war, they're used here as a metaphor for the futility of the war itself. To the viewer, they become unforgettably intense rites of passage for the best friends--Pennsylvania steelworkers played by Robert De Niro, John Savage, and Oscar winner Christopher Walken--who may survive or perish during their tour through a tropical landscape of hell. Back home, their loved ones must cope with the war's domestic impact, and in doing so they allow The Deer Hunter to achieve a rare combination of epic storytelling and intimate, heart-rending drama. --Jeff Shannon

Review
Realizing that the three-hour film would need to be a prestige event to draw public interest, Universal followed Grease producer Allan Carr's advice and opened The Deer Hunter for one week for Academy Award consideration in December 1978, putting off the national opening until February 1979. The gambit succeeded. The film won the Best Picture prize from the New York Film Critics' Circle and got nine Academy Award nominations as it went into national release, including Best Picture, Best Director, and acting nods for Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep. The movie went on to beat Coming Home for Best Picture and Best Director and also picked up Oscars for Walken's performance, Sound, and Editing. As the film's acclaim grew, it also aroused objections to the depiction of the Vietcong as racist from, among others, Coming Home star Jane Fonda, as well as criticisms from numerous Vietnam reporters that director Michael Cimino was ill-informed about real Vietnam experience, not having served in the war himself. Regardless of the disputes over the veracity of the Russian roulette scenes, they create an indelible metaphor for warfare and its atmosphere of sudden, random violence. While the press notes suggest that the final song was meant to be affirmative, the searing sense of loss that builds up throughout the film renders it profoundly ambiguous. This combination of ambivalence, brutality, and controversy echoed American culture's experience of Vietnam, making The Deer Hunter an even more telling cultural artifact than may have been intended. The film's awards and acclaim manifested Hollywood's willingness finally to reckon one way or another with a war that had been all but absent from movie screens while it was happening, leading the way for such later films as Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). With the prizes and dissension, The Deer Hunter became a popular hit, enabling Cimino to have full artistic freedom for his next film, the financially disastrous Heaven's Gate. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Synopsis
One of several 1978 films dealing with the Vietnam War (including Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning Coming Home), Michael Cimino's epic second feature The Deer Hunter was both renowned for its tough portrayal of the war's effect on American working class steel workers and notorious for its ahistorical use of Russian roulette in the Vietnam sequences. Structured in five sections contrasting home and war, the film opens in Clairton, PA, as Mike (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Stan (John Cazale, in his last film) celebrate the wedding of their friend Steve (John Savage) and go on a final deer hunt before the men leave for Vietnam. Mike treats hunting as a test of skill, lecturing Stan about the value of "one shot" deer slaying and brushing off Nick's urgings to appreciate nature's beauty. As Mike ruminates post-hunt, the film cuts to the horror of Vietnam, where the men are captured by Vietcong soldiers who force Mike and Nick to play Russian roulette for the V.C.'s amusement. Mike turns the game to his advantage so they can escape captivity, but the men are permanently scarred by the episode. Steve loses his legs; Nick vanishes in the Saigon Russian roulette parlors. Mike returns alone to Clairton a changed man, as he rejects the killing of the deer hunt and finds solace with Nick's old girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep). Disgusted by the antics of his male cohorts at home, Mike decides to bring Steve back from a veterans' hospital, and he returns to Saigon to find Nick. As Saigon falls, Mike discovers how far gone Nick is; the survivors gather in Clairton for a funeral breakfast, singing an impromptu rendition of "God Bless America." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Some part of the film might seem like fillers but it gives great intensity
A good number of viewers believe that "The Deer Hunter" is overlong and a bit overrated, probably due to a handful of scenes, but beside that its an important film that was the first commentary on the topic of Vietnam. It wouldn't have worked nearly as powerfully if the first hour been trimmed down a bit. It wasn't the director's attention because he meant to focus on "character development," base on the lives of three all-American friends, Niko (Christopher Walken), Michael (Robert DeNiro) and Steven (John Savage) through the affects of the war.

We have to sense the careless and frat-boy-like immaturity of these young men. That's why the scenes all revolve around frivolity and seemingly senseless boyish behavior; it creates such a stark contrast to the devastated characters of the three who went to war (and the relatively unaffected personalities of those who stayed behind, like Stanley). Although both De Niro and Walken have made a lot of great films after this movie, I have to say that this is one of their best movies in their career. They both give powerful performances and are the ones who were the best things about this movie. Both actors are at the top of their careers and were wonderful together.

Director-write Michael Cimino doesn't try to turn this into one of the goriest movies ever made. It's quite the opposite. Although there were a few bloody scenes throughout the movie (which I didn't mind), all of those scenes were done in a realistic portrayal of the war (or any of the other bloody scenes, such as the Russian Roulette scene at the end of the movie). Because of this, the movie doesn't become a disturbing war film, yet respectable.

"The Deer Hunter" is important film that wasn't done for nothing because it carries a strong message about life, death and love. It is a movie that should be experienced by everyone at least once, and if you like movies dealing with the Vietnam war several of them, like "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon", and "Apocalypse Now," should also interest you.

Loyalty
I was struck by the scene at the end where everyone gathers at the coffee shop. There is no disgust at the result of the war that one could expect, but a more communal sense of loyalty. These are proud Americans of Russian descent, but their government is in a cold war with their homeland. Their situation is similar to Italian Americans whose loyalty, during WWII, was suspect. There is a scene in the movie where a doctor approaches Christopher Walken and asks him if his name is Russian. He responds adamantly that it's American. The whole movie speaks of loyalty. Meryl Streep has the chance to go out with the manager of a local business, but she remains with Michael. And so it is a poignant scene at the end, where these people who have had their lives torn apart by an immoral war join together and sing God Bless America..

Sometimes You Can Never Go Home
Director Michael Cimino made this masterpiece and it seems to have drained all his talent, as he followed it up with the legendary "Heaven's Gate". Put that aside, as this is a riveting and thorough examination of a group of small town Pennsylvania steel workers that go to Vietnam with varying end results. Michael (Robert DeNiro), Steven (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken) are the best of buddies that regularly go deer hunting and bar hopping. The first hour of the film dives deeply into the personal aspects of each characters personality and make-up, including a long wedding scene that is preciously real. Suddenly the film turns from American normalcy to the horrors of the war. All three men are prisoners of war in hellish conditions, forced to take part in a cruel and devastating game of Russian roulette with their captors. The scenes of war are brief but to the point. It is pure madness and although the men 'survive', they are in differing states of change. The final act shows Michael desperate to get Steven back into the real world, but his biggest challenge is to rescue Nick, who, severely disturbed by his ordeal, has stayed back in Vietnam. The last scene with DeNiro and Walken is nerve wracking and heart-breaking. The ending is unforgettable. This is the kind of film that rarely comes along - the kind of movie that makes you feel like you are there. Trivia: The Pennsylvania mountains scenes are beautifully filmed, but it's painfully obvious it's the Cascades of Washington.