The Deer Hunter – Review

movie reviewIt’s a classic from 1978 and i wanted to watch this movie for years. Due to my sickness over the last few days i had some time to watch a few films on my list. Now this movie gives us a young Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep. Everyone playing their roles on highest niveau.

The story is about three young men from a small industrial town in the united states, 1970s. All three go to vietnam while one of these three gets married just before they depart into the green hell. In vietnam then they find back together just to live through hell when they get captured by the enemy. With a ton of luck they make it and find a way back to the troops. All the experienced atrocities and torture changed these men. While we know them pretty extroverted, partying… they now turn out to be very quite characters. They do not seem to be able to fully understand what happened. Christopher Walken plays it so good. While our Robert De Niro character comes home and finds that nothing there has changed, particular friends still being closeminded, he is not the party guy anymore. As soon as he finds out that one of his friends is back from vietnam too he tries to find him. The character, amazingly played by John Savage, sits in a wheelchair now. Both legs amputed and one arm deaf. While he married just before he went to vietnam he now turned himself into a veterans hospital. He can’t stand it being a burden. He’s a wreck. While our Robert De Niro character tries to bring his friend home he also finds out that their other friend is still alive and still in vietnam. While the vietnam war is lost and at its end it’s our Robert De Niro character that goes back there to find his friend and fulfill his promise to bring him home. Unfortunately things don’t turn out as expected.

Like so many war movies this one specifically shows what war can do to ordinary people. People dragged out of their normal life to fight for something that actually makes no sense. It’s a 3h long movie that takes itself the necessary time to portrait even smaller details. And that’s the point. How things you experience can twist your thinking 180 degrees. It can make you go crazy or calm you down or turn you hypersensible to certain things. Amazingly portrayed by the actors in this film. If you have some time left… check it out!

For me a 8.0/10

The Deer Hunter on IMDb

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