The Deer Hunter

S

sportegirl7

New member
Recorded this film a few months ago from Film 4 and finally got a chance tonight to watch it. What a let down. I gave it an hour and a half and had to put it off. Was bored with and didn't hold my attention. With an all star cast I think it is totally overated. Am I wrong and if so tell me why. If you think I am wrong don't say it's because I never gave it a chance. As most movies last on average 90 mins I think I gave it more than enough time to get interesting.
 
Its a slow paced and long film thats for sure but I think its worth seeing through to end - there are some great performances by the cast but hey i'm not one to switch off a movie part the way through no matter how bad it is - I sat through the Titanic once, willing the ship to sink the entire time and if i can sit through that I can watch anything.

If you don't get it and don't like it though I guess there is no point.
 
I've only seen bits of it here and there whilst channel surfing. It didn't hold my attention either, though I have never set out to watch it as I thought it was aimed at a specific audience of which I'm not a part of.
 
The first half is definitely too meandering, but there are some brilliant parts scattered across the whole thing, and then the end is great. I still don't know what they were trying to achieve with The Deer Hunter. It's almost like a doco a lot of the time.
 
People who find films like The Godfather and The Deer Hunter "boring" should stick to shite like Mama Mia. Until they've left puberty behind. What were you expecting? Rambo?
 
:D exactly what i was thinking.

people should watch The Dear Hunter as its you could probably see some of the influences it has had on other films.

its classic EPIC piece of film, you need to watch it till the end as its gets very intense.

i admit it does start of slow but its just charachter building and once the film enRAB you will understand it all and the reason for the long build up.

trust me in this, watch the movie and pay attention.
 
Yes, the start is slow, but it sets up the second half of the film quite brilliantly. Someone in this thread even posted "I don't see the point of the film" :rolleyes: The whole point of it (along with the long pre-Nam start) is to show how the horrors of war can destroy people and completely transform their personalities. Mike (the De Niro character) for example is the pack leader, the tough guy, the man who is obsessed with the perfect "one shot" slaughter of the Deer on his hunting trips. After his experiences in war, he enRAB the film a sullen, quiet and introverted man, and chooses not to kill anymore on the reunion hunting trip. It amazes me when people attack this masterpiece. The roulette scene is one of the greatest in cinema history.
 
I agree, you really do have to ride out the first hour to then get to see the rest of the brilliance. It's like two very different parts, the pre war bit just gives you a glimpse at what life was like so that you can compare it to what the characters are like when they come home after all the tragedy.

Its an amazing film.
 
that's fair enough, you like what you like, same as we all do. but if you get bored you could do worse than dabble with some of the new films named above.


I've called off the cyborg killer by the way.
 
I thought 'The Deer Hunter' was a great film until I re-watched it again last year for the first time in about ten years. Totally changed my opinion its aged badly, yeah the perfomances are good but other than that its completely overrated.
 
Film 4 has commercial breaks so that f*cks up the flow for a start. The first part of the film seems long because today a studio would insist on a brief intro because of the short attention span of typical movie watcher. In the intro, the main characters are doing typical things and revealing that they are living in a routine, repetitive insular world where you work,you marry, you die of old age.

Suddenly the actors are dropped in vietnam, without any long boot camp / army training sequence, and each of them is damaged by the experience, most notably the christopher walken character Nick. The cheapness of life, where heroin addict Nick is used as a gambling toy by the French bloke until he take one roulette too many, is a million miles from the steel mill home town.

In the closing scene when they song star spangled banner, the melancholy and sense of absence and loss is haunting.

Put the phone off the hook, get the dvd for about
 
I think it's totally overrated too, having managed to sit through the entire film. I know many rate Walken's performance, but that was one of the things I found most disappointing.
 
Me too! The Deer Hunter is worth watching if not only for the beautiful guitar piece but it is a very intense film about relationships between frienRAB and lovers and mental strength. The russian roulette scene is very haunting.
 
I was expecting/hoping for a good film. I get how you have to have character building and scene setting etc. But it was too slow in doing that. I don't have 3 hours to waste while the scene is set.
 
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