The Deer Hunter (1978): A Review

Hailed as one of America's greatest movies, The Deer Hunter (1978) tells the story of three young American men in Vietnam and the war's affect on them. Directed by Michael Cimino (Heaven's Gate, Year of the Dragon) and starring Robert De Niro (The Godfather, Taxi Driver) as Michael, Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, Catch Me if You Can) as Nick, Meryl Streep (Sophie's Choice, Kramer vs Kramer) as Linda, and John Savage (Thin Red Line, Beauty and the Beast) as Steve, the film carries us through the dehumanization of war and leaves us altered at the end.

Were The Deer Hunter simply a war movie, the opening marriage and celebration scene would be far too long for the necessary character development. However, the movie tells the the story of three men and a community who became involved in a war, not of the war itself, making the lengthy beginning fully appropriate. We follow the young men (Nick, Steve, Michael, and their friends) through their lives at the steel mill and local bar on Steve's wedding day, which happens to also be the last day before the three ship off for Vietnam. From their interactions, we see that while their lives in the dirty town are filled with problems, yearnings, and unfulfilled desires, they are also good, human, and connected to the lives around them.

Abruptly, we find them in a Vietnamese POW camp, tortured by their captors in one of the most harrowing scenes in American cinema. Prisoners are forced to sit opposite each other and play Russian roulette until one of them shoots himself in the head. While there is no evidence to suggest that the NVA ever played this "game" with their prisoners, it works well as a sort of cinematic short hand for the very real punishments and tortures that were inflicted on the prisoners. This motif of Russian roulette appears throughout the movie, representing the way some are willing to risk the random chance of death in order to save the people they care as well as the brutal degradation of war, a game some volunteer to play while others are forced to.

For those who survive the POW camp, life gets little better upon their release. Those who return return enter a community that no longer fully understands them, even though it welcomes them with open arms, while (straining our suspension of disbelief) one of the men remains in Saigon to play Russian roulette professionally. While the men can never be complete members of the community again, they are still able to live and grieve with them, ending the film with a rendition of "God Bless America" that is simultaneously hopeful and bleak.

Ultimately The Deer Hunter is about the innate value of life and the dehumanization of war. It is not exactly an anti-war film; none of the characters ever grandstand about their opposition to the conflict, indeed, they all willingly signed up for it. It is, however, a film that talks about what war does to those who enter it and those who are affected by it, providing a darkly beautiful story that speaks to Americans now as well as it did in 1978.