The Deer Hunter

The kind of movie that reminds me why I fell in love with movies. I dont even know how a film this good was conceptually possible. Robert De Niro is one of a kind I’m not gonna say much about his brilliant acting, because I feel like everyone should experience it blindly, but man it was amazing. Im rather unfamiliar with Christopher Walken but he was just as outstanding as Robert De Niro.  Theres an overwhelming since of comradely and love in the first act, (no soviet puns and Russian intended), you see how deeply the characters care for one another all throughout the movie, they stay together through thick and thin. They see going to Vietnam as a good thing, the path to becoming a righteous man, to serve your country, to love a woman, and although a man may have been created in the process, they leave shells of their former selves. As a stark contrast in 3rd act the camaraderie and love the characters and their community had is wrecked through the numerous tragedys they experience, but when all is lost, there is nothing left to do but rebuild. “God Bless America.” The Deer Hunter tackles something that at the time was so fresh, rather than glorifying the War in Vietnam, it emphasizes the horrors and mental impact the events endured can have on those affected, the desperation we see in every character in Vietnam, from the Vietnamese mother selling herself to prostitution to make a living to Angela losing herself to the horrors of what her partner endured. As I read the reviews people say this movie has an issue with pacing, I mean it is 3 hours long, but it did not feel NEARLY as long as suggested. The Deer Hunter is one of those experiences where you just get to soak the beauty of everything around you; the otherworldly mountains, the trees, the lake, the wooden pub, even the raggedly old town stand as a bleak contrast to the horrors the characters endured in Vietnam. Im in awe of this film, a true masterpiece. “One shot”