The Deer Hunter

"The Deer Hunter" has some very promising ideas and nice moments. The trouble is that the film runs over three hours, which means there's a lot of chaff to separate from the wheat.

The film tells the story of three Pennsylvania steelworkers, Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (Nick Savage). In the film's first hour, Steven gets married and goes hunting with his buddies. This part of the movie is by far the most effective. It gives us the most realistic look at male comradery I have seen on film: the backslapping, the pranks, the crude banter, the drinking.

After their hunting trip, the men are shipped off to Vietnam. Predictably, the film shifts in tone here. The first scene in Vietnam is absolutely harrowing: having been captured by the Viet Cong, the men are forced to play a deadly version of Russian roulette. One bullet is put in a pistol and each man is forced to fire the gun at his own head, praying that the bullet is not in the chamber that fires.

Upon their escape, however, the film begins to drag considerably. Steven is injured, while Michael and Nick wander the streets.

In the film's final section, Michael returns home, only to find out that Steven has lost three limbs and Nick is AWOL. Michael can no longer engage in macho roughhousing; he can't even bring himself to shoot a deer, his previous favorite pastime. He has seen the logical conclusion of the masculine mindset, and it horrifies him.

If "The Deer Hunter" were focused on this theme, it would be a powerful statement. But director Michael Cimino has too much else on his agenda. His sequences are bloated and often unnecessary; for example, the ending, which explains Nick's fate, adds nothing that we couldn't already have inferred.

Had "The Deer Hunter" been made five years earlier or later, the studio would likely have forced Cimino to trim it down. Alas, it was made at the height of '70's Hollywood excess. The film could have been a punch to the stomach; instead, it's more of a sedative.