the deer hunter movie review

I don't mean to make "The Deer Hunter" sound like "War and Peace" or even "Gone With the Wind." Its view is limited and its narrative at times sketchy. It's about three young men who have been raised together in a Pennsylvania steel town, work together in its mill, drink, bowl and raise hell together, and then, for no better reason than that the war is there, they go off to fight in Vietnam.

"The Deer Hunter," which opens today at the Coronet, is an update on the national dream, long after World War II when America's self-confidence peaked, after the Marshall Plan, after Korea, dealing with people who've grown up in the television age and matured in the decade of assassinations and disbelief.

The three friends, all of Russian extraction, are Mike (Robert DeNiro), Nick (Christopher Walken) and Steve (John Savage). Mike is the one who calls the tune for his friends. To the extent that any one of them has an interior life, it is Mike, a man who makes a big thing about hunting, about bringing down a deer with one shot. More than one shot apparently isn't fair. As codes go this one is not great, but it is his own.

Nick goes along with Mike, sometimes suspecting that Mike is eccentric, but respecting his eccentricities. Steve is the conventional one, whose marriage (a Russian Orthodox ceremony, followed by a huge, hysterical reception) occupies most of the film's first hour and sets out in rich detail what I take to be one of the movie's principal concerns--what happens to Americans when their rituals have become only quaint reminders of the past rather than life-ordering rules of the present.

Mr. Cimino has described his treatment of the three friends' war experiences as surreal, which is another way of saying that a lot of recent history is ellipsized or shaped to fit the needs of the film. What is not surreal is the brutality of the war and its brutalizing effects, scenes that haunt "The Deer Hunter" and give point to the film even as it slips into the wildest sort of melodrama, which Mr. Cimino plays out against the background of the collapse of Saigon and the American withdrawal from Southeast Asia. It's Armageddon with helicopters.

Most particular and most savage is the film's use of Russian roulette as a metaphor for war's waste. It's introduced when the three friends, prisoners of war of the North Vietnamese, are forced by their captors to play Russian roulette with one another. The game crops up again in Saigon where, according to this film, it was played in back-street arenas rather like cockfighting pits, for high-dollar stakes. These sequences are as explicitly bloody as anything you're likely to see in a commercial film. They are so rough, in fact, that they raise the question of whether such vivid portrayals don't become dehumanizing themselves.

More terrifying than the violence--certainly more provocative and moving--is the way each of the soldiers reacts to his war experiences. Not once does anyone question the war or his participation in it. This passivity may be the real horror at the center of American life, and more significant than any number of hope-filled tales about raised political consciousnesses. What are these veterans left with? Feelings of contained befuddlement, a desire to make do and, perhaps, a more profound appreciation for love, friendship and community. The big answers elude them, as do the big questions.

Deric Washburn's screenplay, which takes its time in the way of a big novel, provides fine roles for Mr. DeNiro, Mr. Walken and Mr. Savage, each of whom does some of his best work to date. Meryl Streep, who has long been recognized for her fine performances on the New York stage, gives a smashing film performance as the young woman, who, by tacit agreement among the friends, becomes Nick's girl but who stays around long enough to assert herself. In the splendid supporting cast are George Dzundza, Chuck Aspegren, Shirley Stoler and Rutanya Alda. The late John Cazale makes his last film appearance a memorable one as the kind of barroom neurotic who might at any moment go seriously off his rocker.

The film has been stunningly photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond, who provides visually a continuity that is sometimes lacking in the rest of the movie. "The Deer Hunter" is both deeply troubling and troublesome (for the manner in which Mr. Cimino manipulates the narrative), but its feelings for time, place and blue-collar people are genuine, and its vision is that of an original, major new film maker.

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Up to the minute, fair, balanced, informed film reviews., the deer hunter (1978). film review of the classic, 1978 vietnam war drama.

Film review by Jason Day of director Michael Cimino’s movie about a group of steel mill workers who enlist to fight in the Vietnam war and find their lives irrevocably changed by it. Starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep.

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A group of Pennsylvanian steel factory workers say goodbye to their innocence in the months preceding the Vietnam War draft and celebrate one of them getting married in big style. Plenty of booze and a lads-only deer hunt in the mountains.

All of them survive the war, but are left with deep psychological scars after the torture they underwent at the hands of a psychotic group of Viet Cong soldiers.

Returning home, Mikey (Robert De Niro) has to adjust to a home that has changed in this eyes and tries to connect with Linda (Meryl Streep) who is his friend’s fiancee.

Review, by Jason Day

For gifted writer-director Michael Cimino, the light that burned twice as bright burnt out twice as fast.

On a critical and commercial high after his first stint wielding the megaphone ( Thunderbolt and Lightfoot , 1974), he developed and directed  The Deer Hunter , less of a war movie and more an examination of the effects of trauma and torture on your average, working class Joe, with the Vietnam War as part of the back drop (most of the film actually takes place in a working class borough of Pennsylvania, dominated by a huge steel works.

After this, like Orson Welles with his Citizen Kane more than 30 years before him, it was all downhill. The catastrophic box office failure of his next epic, the mighty western  Heaven’s Gate (1980), virtually destroyed United Artists as a production concern. The blame fell largely on Cimino’s shoulders and he paid the price with his career (he would only directed another four films before his death in 2016).

This film is his magnum opus and commands your respect.

The opening is almost primordial, with the hell-fire and brimstone of the factory. It is a fulcrum of early life, albeit one completely devoid of females, with an uncomfortable head emanating off the screen, sparks flying and molten metal spewing in rivers.

The women are very much outsiders in this film, either old crones wrapped in fur coats and working boots, pregnant newly-weds or willow blonde girls, but they are important catalysts for the men’s emotional sides. This is beautifully portrayed by Meryl Streep in one of her earliest film performances and the one that scooped her the first of her unprecedented 21 Oscar nominations (she has, of course, won three times, twice as Best Actress).

Is Streep, presented as the epitome of feminine grace, rarefied and rather obviously a cut above the other girls in town, a deer to be hunted as well? De Niro certainly takes his time pursuing her, having appreciated her from afar for many years, patiently stalking her like the deer in the mountain, likewise a thing of beauty that captivates him and his friends.

Unlike the deer that he slays with one crack shot, Mikey keeps missing Streep with his other weapon, decidedly half cocked.

Cimino’s style is grand, stately and leisurely in this opening act. The wedding (of Jon Savage’s character to Rutanya Alda) takes a full 36 minutes of the film’s duration, form when we first see the Bridesmaids to the point where a pissed De Niro goes for a naked dash through town.

Cimino covers the diaspora of all working class life in scenes that would have impressed Lucino Visconti, another director who liked to linger on a moment. The men shoot pool and get drunk, the women fret about their hair and make-up, Streep is beaten by her drunken, abusive father, mothers moan about their sons and soon-to-be sons-in-law, people fret about the lack of respect from the young and how traditions and orthodox religious beliefs are being forgotten by them (the town is populated by mostly Russian emigres).

The Vietnam scenes don’t take place until an hour into the movie but as the most devastating and impactful, with the ‘Russian Roulette’ gun scenes giving  The Deer Hunter continued notoriety. Be warned, they still have the potential to shock but also give Christopher Walken the chance to seriously impress audiences. Later, years after the war has ended, he continues to place a revolver to his temples, dead behind the eyes and carrying deep emotional scars. He appears to do and say very little, which makes this performance even more memorable.

De Niro is magisterial, literally King-like, as the quiet alpha male of the group, the only one who manages to (just about) keep his shit together during the appalling conditions of his interment.

There are other quietly impressive support performances from Savage and an impossibly young George Dzunda, as the only loud member of the group.

Deservedly, he won 1979’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The film was the big hitter at international film awards. It won another four Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Director) and was nominated for 48 other awards around the globe.

Cast & credits

Director: Michael Cimino. 175mins. Universal. (18)

Producers: Michael Cimino, Michael Deeley, John Peverall, Barry Spikings. Writer: Deric Washburn. Camera: Vilmos Zsigmond. Music: Stanley Myers. Sets: Ron Hobbs, Kim Swados.

Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, George Dzunda, Shirley Stoller, Chuck Aspegren, Rutanya Alda. 

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Deer Hunter, The (United States, 1978)

For director Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter represented his career’s pinnacle. Awash in hubris as a result of the film’s reception at the 1979 Oscars, he embarked on a disastrous project that would sink his future and nearly bankrupt United Artists. Heaven’s Gate may not have been the worst movie ever made but it’s among the worst high profile, mainstream duds, standing in a circle of infamy reserved for only a few cinematic disasters. In retrospect, some of Heaven’s Gate ’s flaws are evident in The Deer Hunter – none more so than the director’s penchant for self-indulgence.

The second act, which is shorter than the Pennsylvania segments that bookend it, chronicles the tribulations of Mike, Nick, and Steven in Vietnam. After being captured, they are kept in poor conditions, physically abused, and psychologically tortured. Seeing a game of Russian Roulette as a possible means of escape, Mike goads Nick into playing and, although both men survive and are able to overpower their captors, Nick’s mind is pushed past the breaking point. The three are separated during their daring river flight.

The principal flaw in The Deer Hunter is evident early during the proceedings. The opening segment, designed to introduce the characters and provide a strong flavor of their culture, goes on for far too long. The interminable wedding is seemingly presented in real-time and creates a sense of impatience in viewers. The flabby, unfocused beginning to the film gives way to the riveting Vietnam sequences, which include the infamous Russian Roulette tournament, which offers powerful, intense performances by De Niro and Walken (the latter winning an Oscar). Criticisms have been leveled against Cimino for his soulless, one-dimensional portrayal of the Viet Cong, but I don’t find those arguments compelling. The Deer Hunter is presented from the perspective of the three Americans and, as most POWs attest, their captors weren’t humane toward them. Cimino had no responsibility to present three-dimensional Vietnamese characters or show that Americans committed atrocities as well. Those are beyond the scope of his film.

The Deer Hunter earned three well-deserved acting nominations. De Niro, at the height of his career, gives a powerhouse performance. For the actor, The Deer Hunter came just before Raging Bull , for which he won his first (and thus far only) Lead Actor Oscar. Christopher Walken, not well known at the time, matches De Niro scene-for-scene and, because he competed in the less competitive Supporting Actor category, he was able to take home a statue. For Meryl Streep, this represented her first of many Oscar nominations. It’s a credit to her ability that she is able to do so much with what is, at least on the surface, a generic role. Streep’s off-screen lover at the time, John Cazale (best known as Fredo in The Godfather films), was dying of cancer during The Deer Hunter ’s filming; there are several scenes in which he is noticeably unwell.

The passage of time has dimmed The Deer Hunter ’s luster. One reason for the contemporaneous praise was the timeliness of the subject matter (the Vietnam war having ended only four years prior to its general release). The film’s openness regarding veterans’ issues made it daring, with its only high profile companion in that area being Coming Home . Watching the movie today, the flaws that were ignored at the time are evident. (Not everyone missed them in 1978. The late Andrew Sarris called the production “massively vague, tediously elliptical.”) The Deer Hunter contains moments – even stretches – of greatness but as a whole, it falls short of the bar that was later achieved by Full Metal Jacket and especially Platoon .

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The Deer Hunter review – Cimino's masterpiece of cruelty and horror

M ichael Cimino's bold and brilliant Vietnam war epic The Deer Hunter is re-released; 36 years on, the film's combination of sulphurous anti-war imagery, disillusion and patriotic melancholy is even more striking. (I haven't watched this since it first came out in 1978; this time I literally gasped at how beautiful a 29-year-old  Meryl Streep is in her pink bridesmaid's gown.)

Three Pennsylvania steelworkers, Mikey ( Robert De Niro ), Nick ( Christopher Walken ) and Steven (John Savage), obey Uncle Sam's call to fight in Vietnam, leaving behind wives and sweethearts, including shopworker Linda (Streep) who may be in love with more than one of them. Before they leave, they attend Steven's wedding: a ceremony in which, without realising it, they are saying goodbye to their old lives. These guys like nothing more than a laugh, a drink and hunting deer in the mountains. Here is where Mikey and Nick have a dimly conceived belief that the hunter's vocation is austere and manly and the deer's death noble and ennobling, unlike the gruesome chaos of war in south-east Asia, where they are captured and forced to take part in a hideous Russian roulette death cult.

Of course, this is just as much a fantasy as Francis Ford Coppola's Wagner-fuelled helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now , and The Deer Hunter has been criticised for this literal inaccuracy and showing Vietnam in terms of American victimhood. But for me, those macabre Russian roulette sequences stunningly proclaim war to be dehumanising and arbitrary. A simple, much-forgotten fact slaps you in the face after watching The Deer Hunter. Vietnam was different to Iraq and Afghanistan in one vital respect: the soldiers were drafted. They had no choice. The idea of sacrifice permeates everything, along with the cruelty and horror. This is Cimino's masterpiece.

• The Deer Hunter
• Drama films
• Michael Cimino

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The Deer Hunter Ending Explained: There Is No Going Back

At their core, movies are meant to entertain us. However, they are also an art form and avenue to prompt thought and discussion on social issues. Most films rely on a five-part structure in telling a story: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This tried-and-true structure almost always wraps up the movie with a nice tidy bow, sending audiences home happy with good triumphing over bad.

While this proven method is good for light amusement, it also breeds predictability. Now and again a film will challenge this narrative structure. In doing so, they often stand out and stick with you long after the end credits. There's a reason 1941's "Citizen Kane" remains atop the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films list. It broke nearly every film convention in place at the time, creating techniques still regularly used today.

In 1978, a social problem film examined the impact of the Vietnam War in ways audiences hadn't seen before. Because of this, the ending of "The Deer Hunter" continues to stick with audiences to this day, with its narrative choices frustrating some and moving others.

What Happens When the Protagonist Loses?

"The Deer Hunter," directed by Michael Cimino, examines the way the Vietnam War affects the lives of three men, Mike (Rober De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken), and Steven (John Savage). The movie is split into three acts: pre-Vietnam normalcy of life in western Pennsylvania as Steven gets married, the three being captured while in Vietnam, and their struggle to reintegrate into society after the war. Cimino and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond move us around the town and the wedding reception like voyuers, using wide shots and long takes to emphasize the slow pace of life at home. At the wedding, friends and family dance and regale, not yet damaged by the haze of the war. When it is announced that Nick and Mike are joining Steven in Vietnam, the entire reception cheers and continues dancing, seemingly celebrating the sacrifices the young men are about to make. As Mike, Nick, and Steven encounter a solemn Green Beret at the bar, they go from buying him a drink to laughing along with a friend that calls the soldier a hillbilly. The three are jovial and enthusiastic, oblivious to the horrors that await them.

Cimino introduces viewers to the war with a stark cut from the western Pennsylvania celebrations to the bombing of a Vietnam village, a woman and child being shot and killed, and a Viet Cong soldier being burned alive. Moments earlier, we were watching Nick leaping over a beer mug in a Russian Orthodox wedding celebration — now there is death everywhere. Close-ups are utilized to emphasize emotion and the dark, cramped spaces the men occupy. Western Pennsylvania and Vietnam were on opposite sides of the Earth, literally but also figuratively, something Cimino drives home with this clash in styles. He essentially creates two separate movies when it comes to tone and tenor.

The film continues to splinter from the traditional film structure in a number of ways. In "The Deer Hunter," Nick slowly evolves into the film's antagonist, leading Mike to travel to Saigon to bring him home. In another subversion of the typical cinematic structure, our protagonist is defeated by the antagonist when Nick refuses to return home with Mike and instead kills himself.

No Resolution

The visuals of the climactic scene are harrowing. Mike finally finds Nick, detached and aloof, and pleads with him to come home. Unable to pry him away, Mike is forced to sit across from Nick for a game of Russian Roulette. The tense silence is punctured by the click of the empty chamber with each successive round of the game, followed by a harsh outcry from the crowd packed around them. It becomes more heartbreaking when it seems Nick has a breakthrough, remembering their old hunting days, only to violently turn the gun on himself. The image of blood pouring from the single bullet wound in Nick's temple, his mouth agape, as Mike cradles him yelling, "No, no, no!" sears into your memory. Audiences understandably grapple with Mike coming to the realization that he's failed to save Nick. Good does not triumph over evil, and it's not what audiences have become accustomed to in film.

Warning: the following clip contains disturbing imagery.

Up to this point in 1978, most films tackling war-related mental or physical disability gave characters happy endings with recovery and reintegration into society. The message of "The Deer Hunter" is that there was no coming back from Vietnam. At least not fully.

The film's falling action features Mike and Steven (now using a wheelchair) with friends and loved ones in a somber celebration of Nick's life after his funeral. As Nick's widow sings "God Bless America," the group is left to make sense of what the war has taken from them. The film lacks a resolution, the fifth part of the dramatic structure, naturally leaving audiences unnerved. It is one of the most powerful endings to a film that I can recall. Unfortunately, it is often labeled one of the worst endings ever, and one of the most depressing movies of all time. Unwitting audiences simply didn't (and often still don't) know what to make of it.

Enter New Hollywood

So how did the movie Roger Ebert called "One of the most emotionally shattering films ever made" get produced? That story begins more than a decade before the film was made. Up until 1968, Hollywood films were regulated by The Motion Picture Production Code, also known as "The Hays Code" named after Will Hays, a former Postmaster General who oversaw the MPAA until 1945. Under "The Hays Code," films were held to a strict set of standards that included a ban on some curse words and specific acts of violence and sexuality (ever wonder why all those couples slept in separate beds during Classical Hollywood period?). The advent of television in the 1950s, an influx of foreign films, and court rulings that gave movies First Amendment protection led to the eventual abandonment of the code. In 1968, the MPAA rating system we know today replaced "The Hays Code."

This freedom and a shift from the Hollywood studio system to one that empowered directors launched a new era in Hollywood known as "New Hollywood" or "American New Wave" cinema. With new power and independence, filmmakers began exploring themes once thought untouchable by Hollywood. It led to a decade of films that offered a new take on American life with a gritty realism. Films from this era included "Easy Rider," "Dog Day Afternoon," and "Taxi Driver." Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" was one of the last of the American New Wave period as Hollywood would transition to the Blockbuster formula in the 1980s. This film, and its ending, serve as one of the last gasps of the most unique period in American filmmaking.

The Ending Of The Deer Hunter Explained

"The Deer Hunter" is a movie about heartbreak: of war and men under pressure, and of a friendship lost when it was supposed to last forever. This 1978 Vietnam War epic follows a group of working-class buddies as they leave the steel mills of Clairton, Pennsylvania behind for the rivers of Vietnam. The young men go to war looking for excitement, but they come back forever changed.

Directed by Michael Cimino, the much-awarded and controversial film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken , John Savage, and Meryl Streep. In his four-star review, Roger Ebert called it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made," and part of that devastation is due to the fact so much time is spent with the characters before they ship out. The movie clocks in at just over three hours, and yet the first helicopter isn't heard for almost an hour.

One of Hollywood's first attempts at reckoning with the then-recent Vietnam War, "The Deer Hunter" was loved and hated in equal measure, and its production became the stuff of legend. The movie is as powerful as it is notorious, especially in its final round of Russian roulette, and there's plenty to unpack. Read on as we explain the ending of "The Deer Hunter."

What you need to remember about the plot of The Deer Hunter

"The Deer Hunter" focuses on a group of Russian-American steelworker buddies who are excited to leave their small town to go and fight in Vietnam. Mike (Robert De Niro) is the macho man of the bunch, while Nick (Christopher Walken) is his more sensitive best friend. The two also run with Steven (John Savage), Stanley (John Cazale), Axel (Chuck Aspegren), and bartender John (George Dzundza). The friends celebrate Steven's wedding to Angela (Rutanya Alda), while the town celebrates the three men — Steven, Mike, and Nick — heading off to war.

At the wedding, it's clear Mike has a crush on Nick's girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep). Afterward, Nick cares for a drunken Mike and makes Mike promise that he won't leave him in Vietnam, no matter what. The next day, the friends go on one last deer hunt, and Mike shoots a buck with one shot — telling Nick that's the only way to take a deer. The sound of helicopters transitions the film to Vietnam, where the three friends are being held as prisoners of war.

They are forced to play a game of Russian roulette for their Viet Cong captors to gamble on. Mike leads Nick in a tense shootout escape. They grab Steven, and a helicopter saves the trio — but only for a moment. Steven slips into the river, and Mike goes in after him, but Nick goes AWOL in Vietnam forcing Michael to return without him. Once home, Mike avoids everyone but Linda — and discovers that Steven is now an amputee, living at a Veterans Administration (VA) hospital, and receiving money every month from someone in Saigon.

What happens at the end of The Deer Hunter?

Mike returns home to Clairton and receives a hero's welcome. However, when he sees everyone gathered to welcome him back, he urges his cab driver to take him to a hotel instead. The next day, Mike heads home and waits for his friends to leave, but Linda stays behind and the two share an emotional greeting. Mike walks her to work, and the two soon begin an affair, under the shadow of their guilt and heartache over Nick not coming home. 

Mike struggles to connect with his old friends, Axel, John, and Stan. Together, they go on a deer hunt and Mike tracks a buck. Instead of taking his shot, however, he shoots into the sky which scares the deer off. Back at the cabin, Mike sees Stan playing with a loaded gun. Enraged, Mike takes a Russian roulette shot at himself. The gun clicks and Mike is safe, but his friendships are frayed — irrevocably changed by the war. Later, John is stunned to learn that Mike doesn't know Steven has already come back home and is at the VA. Mike goes to bring Steven home to his near-catatonic wife and deduces that Nick is the one sending money to Steven — winnings he's making by playing Russian roulette in Vietnam.

Mike returns to Vietnam to find Nick is now professionally playing the deadly game. While he tries to reason with his old friend, it ends with Nick winning — if you can call it that — with one fatal shot. Finally, Mike makes good on his promise not to leave Nick in Vietnam and brings his body back to Clairton. After Nick's funeral, John welcomes the group back to his bar for one final toast to their departed friend.

What does the end of The Deer Hunter mean?

In any other movie, the idea that life is like playing Russian roulette might sound corny — perhaps akin to the famous "Forrest Gump" comparison to a box of chocolates. However, in the careful hands of Michael Cimino and through the haunted eyes of Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken, the metaphor hits hard.

The Russian roulette that we all play in life has an effect, and when it comes to war, even more so. Some live, and some die — that is just the harsh reality of life. Some are crushed by the pressure of the game, some transform into an unrecognizable version of themselves, and some become better than they were because of it. In the end, all try to find a sense of normalcy and belonging. We try to keep taking chances, and even if we can't, we always try to find a home again.

One line in "The Deer Hunter" summarizes this particularly well, when Linda asks Mike "Did you ever think life would turn out like this?" While they're now together — and as happy as they can be given the circumstances — there is also the sense that life shouldn't have gone this way, that Mike and Linda should never have been together because Nick should never have died. Similarly, Mike feels at odds with his friends without Nick — none of them should be in this situation, but that's just the hand they have been dealt.

What is the meaning of The Deer Hunter's final song?

The friends in "The Deer Hunter" use music to bond, singing songs like "Dropkick Me Jesus" and "Can't Keep My Eyes Off of You." Their singing may be off-key, but it is a spontaneous moment of joy between the tight-knit group. Even John's beautiful bar piano rendition of Frédéric Chopin's "Nocturne No. 6 in G Minor" feels real — a moment of beauty offered to his friends before they leave for war. The closing number of "God Bless America" might have been meant in this same vein — but instead, it caused plenty of controversy.

John hums "God Bless America" as he makes breakfast for his mourning friends. Soon after, Mike, Linda, and the rest of the group sadly sing along. In a movie that takes a considerable amount of time to tell its story, the speed of the scene feels jarring in comparison. Many critics at the time found the scene to be a cheap play at sentimentality, overly patriotic, and anti-American.

"Their 'God Bless America' is fervent and heartfelt," Arthur Knight wrote in his review for The Hollywood Reporter . Meanwhile, producer Barry Spikings spoke of studio panic regarding the film to Vanity Fair , saying "What really upset them was 'God Bless America.' Sheinberg thought it was anti-American ... He said something like 'You're poking a stick in the eye of America.'" Director Michael Cimino clarified his intentions much later in his life, during an interview (via KGSM MediaCache ). "The ending is really, not meant to be so much a statement of patriotism, but a statement of communion," Cimino says. "They begin to sing the one song they all know from grade school ... and it reunites them as a family."

Why does Mike try to save Nick?

Mike finally got out of Vietnam, so why on earth would he go back? The answer is simple: He made a promise to a friend. Before the war, Mike is protective of Nick, behaving a bit like a big brother to him. When they go hunting together, he half boasts and half advises Nick about taking a deer down with one shot. 

It is an expression of compassionate cruelty in a sense. Yes, you're killing the deer, but don't let it suffer when you do it. Nick allows Mike to see his nerves about the war, stammering as he tries to describe the beauty of what is around them. While he worries Mike will judge him, these fears are unfounded, and Mike also doesn't dig too deep into his sensitive friend's struggles either. 

Nick is often vulnerable around Mike, which makes Nick's hardened, blank demeanor at the end of "The Deer Hunter" so alien and alarming. Mike goes back for his friend not just because he made a promise, but because he feels responsible for the terrible change that has overcome Nick. Mike led Nick into this hunt, and he made Nick play Russian roulette so they stood a chance at surviving. During their escape, Mike didn't let Nick drown himself, but then he went to help Steven instead of staying with Nick. Mike is tough but he led someone tender into hell — and so he does all he can to save Nick from it.

What happens with Mike and Nick?

The relationship between Mike and Nick is the broken heart of "The Deer Hunter." Nick starts the film sensitive and unsure, the follower to Mike's rowdy leader. Their tactics to survive the horrors of wars instead rob them of their earlier identities. Nick morphs into a profitable death-wish machine, while Mike becomes driven, sensitive, and careful enough to be able to actually save his friend.

If Mike brushed aside Nick's sensitivities before, he draws on them in their final scene together. Mike is soft, insistent, observant, and never looks away from Nick. Nick, on the other hand, is an emotionless brick wall. Mike risks his life in the roulette game in order to save Nick. "I love you, Nick," he says and pulls the trigger. Mike's life is spared, and Nick has a glimmer of recognition for his old friend.

Encouraged, Mike reminds Nick of their earlier hunting trips, and Nick seems to be coming back. He echoes Mike's words — "One shot" — and Mike is elated to have finally reached him. But then Nick smiles a terrible smile, puts the gun to his temple, and shoots. The moment is powerful enough without any labored symbolism, but in that moment Nick is the deer Mike didn't kill kindly, and it took too many shots to end his misery.

What happens with Mike and Linda?

Throughout "The Deer Hunter," the characters frequently ask and answer the question, "You okay?" Everyone always says they are, and it's always a lie. The last time any character in "The Deer Hunter" is anything close to okay is in the drunken, bittersweet, and happy moments at Steven and Angela's wedding. The men go away to war hoping to come home as heroes, but when Mike does return, he can't face the hero's welcome waiting for him. He, Steven, and Nick are forever changed by their experiences — and they don't have the words to express it. 

As Mike flees from Linda and his own home in favor of a hotel room, he tells her "I feel a lot of distance, and I feel far away," and he has to grasp for these words. He apologizes but still flees, and she — equally not okay — chases after him. Neither has the words for their loss, but what they do have is each other. 

Mike is softer upon his return, which makes his last trip to Vietnam to save Nick all the more heartbreaking. The pressure of war has forced Mike to let his guard down, and he is a better and more emotionally available person because of it. Despite Mike's damaged heart and his sorrowful screams as he cradles the bloodied Nick, we get the sense that Mike will be more open about his feelings after this. He is tender to everyone at the bar after Nick's funeral and most of all to Linda.

What happens to Steven?

No one is dealt a winning hand in "The Deer Hunter", but Steven starts things out with more promise than any of his buddies. He marries Angela and does so against the wishes of his overbearing mother. He was funny and full of life ... and then he went to Vietnam.

Steven's mobility is stolen by the war after his jump into the river ruins his legs. While Michael returns to Clairton looking every inch the handsome decorated hero, Steven — like so many other veterans — convalesces at the VA, playing bingo with older men and fellow soldiers who are all struggling to reintegrate into their old lives. 

Steven avoids his wife and child, and the movie posits that he's hiding from reality at the VA — so much so that Mike forcing him to return home seems to be painted as honorable. Regardless of the director's intention, to modern eyes, Steven's fate is less cowardly and more a condemnation of a system that does not provide adequate support to those who have served.

What is the controversy surrounding Russian Roulette in The Deer Hunter?

There are two major strikes against the way "The Deer Hunter" leans so hard on the game of Russian roulette. The first is quite simply that no documented case of the Viet Cong conducting such a cruel game has ever been recorded. In fact, the Russian roulette storyline is lifted directly from a script that producers Barry Spikings and Michael Deeley brought to Michael Cimino called "The Man Who Came to Play," which was about friends going to Las Vegas to play Russian roulette.

War journalist Peter Arnett wrote for the LA Times (via VVAW ) of the lack of reported cases of Russian roulette, and otherwise damned Cimino's film, saying: "His portrayal of the Vietnamese people as inhuman monsters, for whom life is cheap, perpetuates the racist stereotype that sustained much of America's involvement in Indochina."

Movies aren't reality, but "The Deer Hunter" trades hard on realism. Though there is no denying the emotional metaphor and visual power of Russian roulette in the film, there is also no defense of the film's racism. "I don't think any of us meant it to be exploitive," Spikings tells Vanity Fair . "But I think we were ... ignorant. I can't think of a better word for it. I didn't realize how badly we'd behaved to the Vietnamese people."

The Deer Hunter's alternate ending

"The Deer Hunter" went through quite the transformation from a Vegas-set Russian roulette script to an Oscar-winning Vietnam War movie. The drama between Michael Cimino and co-screenwriter Deric Washburn could probably merit its own Hollywood production, but a glance at the duo's original script for "The Deer Hunter" shows a different — but familiar — direction the movie could have gone.

The first major change is that Mike's character could have been named "Merle", and the close Russian-American community of Clairton was initially intended to be Greek. But these changes are nothing compared to the first imagined ending. In the original script, Mike is the one who stays behind in Vietnam, and when Nick comes back to save him, Mike tells him he likes it there. "His eyes are pale, like faded robin's eggs," reads the original action line. "They seem to look through Nick, as if to some landscape far beyond."

That look seems to match the energy of Christopher Walken's eventual performance. However, the original script has Mike verbalize why he stays to gamble with his life, saying, "I like it, Nick ... I like it because it's simple." The fatal shot happens off-screen, and while the moment is still intense, it has nothing on the ending we got.

What have the cast of The Deer Hunter said about the film?

"The Deer Hunter" won five Academy Awards, including best picture, best director, and best supporting actor for Christopher Walken. Many of the actors have described making the film as both exhausting and exhilarating. "The circumstances were genuine," Walken recalled to Janet Maslin in a 1978 New York Times article. "We'd been tied up. There were mosquitoes. There were rats.”

Walken also admitted to subsisting on a meager diet to prepare for the final roulette scene and described the direction Michael Cimino gave him and Robert De Niro for the key scene. Speaking to  The Guardian , Walken relayed Cimino's minimal instructions: "You put the gun to your head, Chris, you shoot, you fall over and Bobby [De Niro] cradles your head." Walken elaborated further on the spontaneity of the film in an interview with  Rolling Stone , saying, "Making that movie was a little like making jazz, playing off each other. That's particularly because of the actors involved. Accidents happen while the camera's rolling, so it was spontaneous within a structure."

Some accidents on the set of "The Deer Hunter" almost cost De Niro his life, but he has still spoken positively about his time working on the film. In Jay Glennie's book "One Shot: The Making of The Deer Hunter," De Niro said, "I always felt that The Deer Hunter was going to be a good movie; otherwise I wouldn't have done it. It had its flaws, but there was something very special about it."

The Deer Hunter: Is the 1978 Movie Based on a True War Story?

Michael Cimino ’s war epic ‘The Deer Hunter’ centers around three steel factory workers, Michael ( Robert De Niro ), Steven (John Savage), and Nick ( Christopher Walken ), whose lives come crashing as one day they are drafted from a small working-class town, Clairton, Pennsylvania, to Saigon. What follows is their journey from their sheltered lives at the factory town to the horrific trenches of the enemy camp with traumatic aftermath.

The three friends are also deer hunters, and their “one shot” analogy becomes symbolic as they hold the rifle against the enemy beyond the trenches. Not a typical war movie, Cimino’s layered 1978 movie has people divided over historical accuracy and the artistic liberties one takes to showcase the events. Let’s find out how much of ‘The Deer Hunter’ is steeped in reality!

The Deer Hunter is Partially Inspired by Real War Experiences

‘The Deer Hunter’ is partially based on a true story. The movie is driven by a screenplay by Deric Washburn adapted from a story by Washburn, Michael Cimino, Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker. It is set against the backdrop of a historical event that no one would forget – the Vietnam War . While none of the main characters, Michael, Steven, and Nick, are based on any real people, their experiences as steel factory workers and war veterans, and the military wife, in the case of Linda, are pretty authentic. Having said that, it is not a war-glorifying movie – even if De Niro is the hero figure, rather, it shows the consequences of unnecessary violence and loss for everyone involved.

There have been many historical inaccuracies in the film, including the fact that the Vietcong didn’t behave the way represented in the movie and that De Niro, who was 35 at the time of the shooting, was not young enough to be enlisted in the war, and it is said that the army reportedly preferred black and Hispanic soldiers over white at the time. In the film’s famous Russian Roulette scene, Mike (De Niro) and Nick (Walken) are forced to put loaded guns to their heads by the Vietnamese as their prison mates and guards bet against who will die first. Those who refuse to participate in the game are partially drowned in water with ferocious rats waiting for their flesh as if in a nightmare.

As per reports, the aforementioned scene was quite different from reality. During the 1979 Academy Awards ceremony, 13 members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War objected to the harrowing scene and claimed that it was too disrespectful to their actual suffering at Saigon. The film went on to bag Oscars for Best Director (Cimino), Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor (Walken), and was nominated for Best Actor (De Niro), Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actress ( Meryl Streep ), Best Writing, Screenplay (Cimino).

Director Cimino wanted the scenes to be hyperrealistic, so he reportedly asked one of the Vietnamese characters to slap Walken in the Russian Roulette game without telling the latter. The shock of the slap on the screen is pretty real. Similarly, De Niro suggested that a live round of bullets be put in the gun in the RR scene, and the crew observed the rounds pretty minutely so that the bullet is not the next in the following take. What followed was authentic reactions from both Mike and Nick, and it shows in the film!

According to writer Studs Terkel, in his book ‘The Spectator: Talks About Movies and Plays with the People Who Make Them,’ the exaggerated way of torture by the Vietnamese army in the film reaffirms this notion that America’s involvement was well-justified. What is evident in the film is the underlying issues that come after the war is over, and the soldiers have come home, but not in one piece. A Veterans Administration survey reported that about 500,000 out of the 3 million serving troops experienced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when they came home.

The after-effects of the war, according to a study , not only affect the soldier but also their spouse (in the case of Nick’s fiancee Linda (Meryl Streep)) with both of them experiencing “general mental health, problem drinking, suicidal ideation, general physical health, sleep disturbances, a combined burden of mental and physical health problems, and couple relationship quality.” Talking about the partners of military personnel in her review of ‘Charlie Company’s Journey Home,’ Award-winning Historian Heath Hardage Lee wrote: “Many of these brave women struggled to restore husbands who returned to them in pieces: physical and mental fragments of the young men they had known and fallen in love with prior to deployment.”

For his role as the steel factory worker, Michael, De Niro went to the factory and saw how the men worked and behaved, and expressed he would have worked there, too, if he was not banned from doing so. He explained that “sometimes, I practice the nature of a person’s lifestyle, which I undertook in my characterisation of Michael. I spent a lot of time in Mingo Junction and Steubenville, Ohio, soaking up the environment. I also tried to become as close to becoming a steelworker as possible without actually working a shift at the mill.” Cimino said that he let De Niro sleep at a steelworker’s house to forge a “connection and an understanding of their habits and speech patterns, a practice he still uses today.”

In 2020, Jay Glennie penned a book ‘One Shot: The Making of The Deer Hunter,’ on the iconic movie and the fascinating archives of De Niro. In a way, ‘The Deer Hunter’ initiated a dialogue about the Vietnam War and reinforced public sentiments of it being a fruitless war. Unlike other war movies that show action with CGI and try to romanticize the heroes and fights, it’s a bit more sensitive to the glaring problems of the survivors, but we caution the readers to take it with a pinch of salt.

Read More: Best Vietnam War Movies

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'The Deer Hunter’ Is a War Movie That Gets War All Wrong

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The Big Picture

• The Deer Hunter is a modern American classic that explores the impact of the Vietnam War on everyday civilians in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
• Director Michael Cimino's exceptional cinematography captures the heart and soul of the film through sweeping wide shots of the town's steel factory and cathedral.
• While the film's depiction of Vietnam and its portrayal of Vietnamese people has not aged well, The Deer Hunter 's true poignancy lies in its portrayal of the lingering anxiety of war and the disillusionment of small-town America.

Nearly fifty years after its release, The Deer Hunter has stood as a modern American classic and an essential text in the canon of Vietnam War films. The film defined director Michael Cimino as a true auteur, further cemented Robert De Niro 's legacy as the perennial actor of his generation, and announced Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken as powerful and graceful performers. Both Cimino and Walken were awarded Oscars for their impeccable work, which was capped off by a Best Picture victory for The Deer Hunter . Despite its monumental presence as a movie commenting on the operatic effects of the Vietnam War on everyday civilians, the 1978 film is at its best and most poignant when it steps away from the battlefield.

The Deer Hunter

An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.

Where Does 'The Deer Hunter' Take Place?

The Deer Hunter is set in the small town of Clairton, Pennsylvania, where three friends and co-workers at a steel factory — Michael (De Niro), Steven ( John Savage ), and Nick (Walken) — routinely partake in big game hunting. On the eve of their departure for Vietnam to serve in the military, and in celebration of Steven's marriage, a grand farewell is thrown for the impending troops. After experiencing the horrors of war, highlighted in the film by a tormenting sequence of Russian roulette forced by Vietnamese combatants, their lives and seemingly unbreakable bonds are shattered forever .

While the film is structured around the friendship of the three, Cimino expands upon the weight of this tight-knit bond by making them inseparable from their community . From the methods that capture the quaintness of small-town America to its authenticity, Clairton operates as a character. Despite its likeness to a portrait by Norman Rockwell , the daunting scope of the town looms over Michael, Steven, and Nick, who collectively represent blissful lives as blue-collar grunts. For Nick, the heart of the film, life is as close to a utopia in Clairton, which makes his fate in Vietnam even more tragic. Exquisitely orchestrated by the exceptional cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond , wide shots of the town's steel factory and cathedral that host the characters on their last days before combat capture the heart and soul of The Deer Hunter . Both are representative of the tough, blue-collar molding of the military-industrial complex and the virtue of salvation and a noble sacrifice, respectively.

These sweeping wide shots of rural vistas in Clairton fuel the operatic scope of the film, even more so than the harrowing sequences in Vietnam. The impact of Cimino and Zsigmond's meticulously crafted shots cannot be overstated, as they make the future veterans seem small in relation to their environment. This is beautifully contrasted with a Robert Altman -esque quality to the depiction of the town, where a plethora of characters are isolated yet also spiritually linked. In this case, the whole town is ostensibly pulled into the fervor of the wedding and the heroic send-off of the steelworkers. The painterly depiction of the Clairton vistas taps into the adventurous worldview of Michael, Steven, and Nick as steadfast deer hunters. Poetically, Cimino mirrors their mountainous hunting environment with the Vietnam battlefield. For each of them, especially Michael, who is the most fearless, enlisting in the war is another bonding activity with their hunting friends. In hindsight, the tragic nature of the film is exacerbated since their knack for hunting tricks them into believing that they are prepared for the monstrosity of war.

The 10 Best Vietnam War Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes

It was an infamous time in history.

From a modern-day perspective, the wedding scene is notably lengthy, perhaps even interminable by some. However, viewers who let the uproarious celebration of marriage and military service wash over them will grasp the true pathos at the heart of The Deer Hunter . The lingering, inevitable horror of Vietnam lingers over these moments of drunken jubilation and the sacredness of the church. For viewers in 1978, only three years since the last U.S. helicopters flew out of Saigon, the wedding ceremony can be identified as a last hurrah for American innocence . There is a certain downbeat thread of poetry in the creation of new life spawning from marriage coinciding with the imminent despair of war.

Why Doesn't 'The Deer Hunter's Vietnam Section Work?

The narrative and profound dissection of the Vietnam War's impact on rural America quickly stumbles and loses focus, ironically, when The Deer Hunter enters Vietnam. The war sequence, which tracks Michael, Steven, and Nick being captured by Vietnamese soldiers and the subsequent forced game of Russian roulette, is undeniably thrilling. Cimino shows equal chops in telling a story through long, elegant takes and fast-cutting sequences of tormenting anguish. Ultimately, there is an inexplicable vapidness to this famous setpiece. The cerebral nature of the film's examination of its characters and settings is lost once the combat begins. Not to mention, the depiction of Vietnamese people as heartless ravages , who seemingly have left their homes with no sentimentality, has not aged considerably well.

The war is naively presented as a bout between good versus evil , and though the film is never driven by subtlety, The Deer Hunter takes on an aggressive operatic quality in its second half. When Nick's PTSD causes him to spiral into nihilism, he forms himself as a local legend by participating in Russian roulette. Similar to the character's enlistment into the war, the film reaches a point of no return with this narrative shift. This broad characterization of the "Vietnam vet gone mad" is farcical . The meditation on the disillusionment of small-town America takes a permanent back seat once the film enters the jungle. The Russian roulette scenes, which at first were seemingly intended to exhibit a harsh contrast between their pre-war and post-war lives , are now deployed merely for shock value.

How Does 'The Deer Hunter' Compare to Other Vietnam War Movies?

Compared to future Vietnam-set films, such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , The Deer Hunter 's engagement with how and why America got involved in the war is lacking . Worse, it gradually walks into a rationalization that the war was justified. For as much melancholic pathos is embedded in the film relating to the lingering anxiety of war, Cimino takes a more passive approach when Michael returns to Clairton. With Nick resigning to stay in Vietnam and Steven having his legs amputated, Michael grapples with the loss of his friends and comforts Nick's former fiancé, Linda (Streep). Film criticism becomes fraught when a form of scrutiny derives from what a film "should" have done, but from how Americans interpret the quagmire and failures of the Vietnam War today, The Deer Hunter 's lack of poignancy surrounding the country's involvement is jarring , especially since the film positioned itself as a bleak humanist story about how U.S. foreign policy rips apart the fabric of small-town America.

A fitting companion piece to The Deer Hunter is another Vietnam-era film and major contender at the Academy Awards in 1978, Coming Home . The film by Hal Ashby is far more grounded and less artistically showy. Stripped of the operatic artifice of The Deer Hunter , Coming Home is honest about how the war-damaged those who fought and those experiencing the pain from the outside . Where the former uses Vietnam as a loose backdrop, the latter is entrenched in post-war anxiety and frustration. What most starkly separates the two films is their endings. Coming Home closes out with Jon Voight 's paraplegic veteran character speaking to a group of youths expressing his regret in enlisting, arguing that military service is not worth losing your legs. The Deer Hunter ends with the main characters of Clairton, following the death of Nick, solemnly singing "God Bless America." There is no escaping the off-putting tonal dive into sentimental patriotism , despite the resounding and emotionally captivating aura of the film across three hours.

Throughout the extensive history of the United States' involvement in international combat , studying the effects of domestic life rounds out the greater societal and political impacts of war. With Vietnam, the gruesome battles only tell half the story -- the other half entails the divisive climate centered around anti-war protests and draft dodging. The Deer Hunter 's faults in its macro view of the war are matched by its profound portrait of a small-town grasping for the last days of an idealistic Americana before being thrown into endless turmoil. The lasting images of Michael Cimino's film as a Vietnam text are not Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken playing Russian roulette, but rather banners of their faces hanging on the walls of the wedding ballroom. The undertones of sadness and decaying innocence amid the red, white, and blue decor evoke a pivotal turning point in the country at the precipice of the Vietnam War. In The Deer Hunter , it is the minutia of how characters dress, such as when the future vets wear hunting attire with their wedding tuxedo, or the look of despair on the deer's face after Michael shoots it. All in all, it is a film that captures the weight of Vietnam without needing to show a second of combat.

The Deer Hunter is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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This article contains mention of graphic violence, suicide, and drug use.

• "The Deer Hunter" is a war epic that exposes the atrocities of combat and its effects on the human mind, particularly for the fragile character Nick.
• The final emotional scenes, including the Russian roulette game, have stirred controversy but remain impactful after forty years.
• The film's ending, featuring the song "God Bless America," showcases the characters' deep connection to their country despite their emotional scars from war.

Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter was a Best Picture winner and war epic that followed three childhood friends from a blue-collar town in Pennsylvania, Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage), and Nick (Christopher Walken) over the course of the Vietnam War. The Deer Hunter is a true story for soldiers who lived its harrowing narrative, with an ending that remains one of the most shattering pieces of cinema forty years later. The movie does not hold back from exposing the atrocities of combat and their effects on the human psyche, particularly for Nick, its most fragile character who disappears into the underground gambling world of Saigon after the war.

Prior to going to Vietnam, Nick made Mike promise not to leave him behind, something which haunts Michael when he returns to the United States. When he finds out that an anonymous benefactor has been sending money to the VA hospital where Steven is receiving treatment, he suspects it must be from Nick. Mike tracks Nick down and finds him playing Russian roulette for cash, but the Nick across the game table is far removed from the beautiful laughing man he was in the Pennsylvania backcountry. Despite their dramatic efficacy, the final emotional scenes have stirred up a lot of controversy that's kept The Deer Hunter in discussion since 1978.

Nick’s Death & Final Russian Roulette Game Explained

Despite Mike's best attempts to get through to Nick with memories of their home, his old friend doesn't seem to register any of it, and they each take turns spinning the chamber and pulling the trigger, landing on empty chambers. The icy tone of the game is in sharp contrast to the time they played in the jungle during the war, when a confident Mike told a frightened Nick that all he needed to do was "put an empty chamber in that gun." Both roulette scenes are intense but have different underlying purposes; one highlights the indomitable fire of the human spirit, and one shows when it's gone out.

Here, he desperately pleads with a detached, reptilian Nick to show any sign that he remembers him and where they come from, grasping at anything he can do to trigger Nick's connection to humanity. He almost has his chance when Nick repeats the words, "One shot, one shot," moments before pulling the trigger, but the hollow smile on his face is short-lived as he fires and succumbs to the single bullet in the chamber. "One shot" refers to the method Michael used when the pair hunted deer together, signifying the optimal way to kill without the animal suffering, and now, on some level, Nick knows that one shot frees him.

Caught in the grip of PTSD, where all he can do is relive his trauma, Nick turned to a game that represented the horrors he'd seen and was still consumed by. He knew that upon returning home, soldiers became shells of their former selves with a fragile psychological state that wasn't easily reintegrated into mundane society, and while it's debatable how lucid Nicky was when pulling the trigger, it's clear he didn't want that fate for himself back on American soil. He accepted that the man he used to be already died in Vietnam and there was no going home, something Mike would learn for himself later on.

What The “God Bless America” Coda Really Means

The "God Bless America" coda that plays at the end of The Deer Hunter is both inspirational and bittersweet. The song is one of the United States' most patriotic anthems, and by including it at the end of The Deer Hunter , the film is reaffirming American values. Despite the trauma experienced by Michael, Nick, Steve, and the rest of the men who served overseas in Vietnam, they each have a deep connection to their country and its identity, even if it's left them each emotionally scarred for life in ways they have only begun to understand and deal with.

By singing it together, the main characters in The Deer Hunter are able to not only bond through their shared experiences but also release a plethora of complex emotions to achieve some sort of catharsis. Listening to the melody, it's impossible to ignore the innocence that they all shared before going to war in contrast with the profound transformation it put them through. The war robbed them of their idealism and replaced it with cynicism and nihilism, but the act of uniting together over a patriotic song about America's virtues reminds them that at least they have solace in each other after everything they've been through.

Why Mike Lets The Deer Live In The Deer Hunter’s Ending

There's a moment in The Deer Hunter's ending where Michael has the chance to shoot a deer but doesn't take the shot, a simple act that carries great significance. After everything he's experienced in Vietnam, he's learned an appreciation for life, and hunting doesn't carry the same appeal that it used to. Like his friends, he's undergone profound changes after witnessing the atrocities of war firsthand, so the act of killing a deer, once something that brought him fond memories with his buddies, is no longer the carefree pursuit that it once was and now feels overshadowed by the lives of the men he took overseas.

RELATED: 10 Great Movies That Are Too Emotionally Intense To Watch Twice, According To Reddit Shooting a beautiful, innocent creature doesn't align with how Mike sees the world now. Where once the deer represented a challenge or a prize, it now embodies the innocence of his pre-war life that he can never get back. There is only the way things were, and the way things are, and by not shooting the deer, Mike is giving credence and recognition to the fact that he'll never be the same again. Finally, not killing the deer shows personal growth on Mike's part and the fact that violence isn't as appealing as a more peaceful existence that's symbiotic with the living things around him.

How Nick Sends Steven Money Despite Losing His Memory

One of the most confusing aspects of The Deer Hunter's ending is the fact that Nick is the person sending Steve money from Saigon despite losing his memory. When Michael finds Nick, he's clearly become addicted to heroin and has been living in a stupor for some time, only to regain pieces of his memory in what prove to be his final moments. Nick barely registers Mike's presence, much less an old friend from his hometown, making it hard to believe that he's been Steve's mysterious benefactor all this time.

The simplest explanation is that at one point in time when he started playing Russian roulette for money, he had rational thought enough to find Steve's hospital and send him the winnings. Slowly over time, he became dependent on heroin to cope with the trauma of his wartime experiences, and his remaining in a stupor suited the men making money off the American soldier willing to play the dangerous game. It shows that Nick wanted his life to have been for something, and that he still had a small connection to his friend even if he could never go home and even if he lost sight of it along the way.

The Deer Hunter’s Historical Inaccuracy Controversies & Effect On America’s Veteran Relations Explained

The Deer Hunter is considered one of the top Vietnam War films , but its accuracy has long been debated by Vietnam historians who have maintained that there's no evidence of the Vietcong ever forcing American prisoners of war to play Russian roulette. In addition, the film has been cited for its racist portrayals of the Vietnamese people, particularly during the Russian roulette scenes. As far as the narrative of the movie is concerned, the game represents the gamble that soldiers take going to war, particularly childhood friends who grew up together and had different ideas about what serving their country would look like.

The Vietnam War wasn't looked upon favorably by the American public, and American soldiers were not treated well both during and after the conflict. Many returned to a country that did very little to rehabilitate them or provide resources for their mental health, resulting in some choosing to self-medicate in ways that resulted in death. Taken as a whole, The Deer Hunter's ending highlighted the damage the war did to individuals, and helped the American public treat soldiers with more empathy and compassion for the sacrifice they made for their country.

• The Deer Hunter (1979)

The Deer Hunter – Review by Peter Biskind

• October 3, 2016

“COME BACK TO THE MILL, NICK HONEY”

THE DEER HUNTER MISSES THE TARGET

Michael Cimino’s new film The Deer Hunter is the Vietnam film everyone has been waiting for—finally, a film that “gets beyond” the propaganda of right-wing films like The Green Berets and left-wing films like Coming Home . As Tweedledee and Tweedledum put it, “this is the first movie about Vietnam to free itself from all political cant” ( Time ); this “is the first film to look at Vietnam not politically, but. . .” ( Newsweek ). Trying to depoliticize a phenomenon as deeply rooted in American history and character as the Vietnam war would be a thankless task, like squaring the circle, but if anyone could do it, it would be somebody like Cimino, who—along with John Milius and Paul Schrader—is one of Hollywood’s New Wave, fast-lane writer-directors. Time / Newsweek has hit the nail on the head. The Deer Hunter offers an escape from politics. It slices through all that tiresome debate about who was right and who was wrong to something that everyone can understand: plain old racism. It was Us—white American boys—against Them—yellow Asian savages. The Yanks versus the Gooks. That simple. Like the enormously successful Midnight Express , The Deer Hunter mines one of the richest seams in the bedrock of American mythology: the innocent abroad—the Jamesian heiress, Wilson at Versailles—beset, beleaguered, betrayed.

The Eden whence these pilgrims set forth is a steel town called Clairton tucked away in the hills of Pennsylvania. The first third or so of the film is devoted to a double celebration: A wedding party for Steven (John Savage) is also a going-away-party for him and the two friends—Nick (Christopher Walken) and Michael (Robert De Niro)—who are to ship out with him the next day for Vietnam. This wedding ceremony is so lavishly and lengthily rendered as to make the Corleone wedding that kicks off The Godfather look like a City Hall quickie. Every gesture is lovingly captured with majestic swooping camera movements; each ethnic tic of these Eastern European, working-class folk is relentlessly registered with such fidelity that the festivities become bigger than life, become heavy with symbolic weight. Such is the fascination that the artifacts of this subculture exercises over the camera that a can of Rolling Rock beer is invested with sacramental significance. This is America before the revolution, before the Fall. This is the final act of the postwar drama of power, innocence, and affluence, the end of the American century.

Cut to choppers hovering over a cluster of thatched huts in the dense green Vietnamese jungle. A Vietcong soldier tosses a hand grenade into the midst of women and children crouched in a bomb shelter. Michael, outraged by this barbarism, zaps the soldier with a flamethrower. The next moment, he, Nick, and Steven are captured. A Vietcong soldier facing the camera puts a gun to the head of a South Vietnamese prisoner to our right. We see a replica of the notorious UPI photograph of Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of South Vietnam’s National Police, putting a bullet through the head of a prisoner, an icon of the depravity of the South burned into the minds of almost everyone who saw it. Only here, it is the Vietcong soldier about to shoot a South Vietnamese prisoner. About to shoot—he pulls the trigger and nothing happens, thus launching the metaphor which is to dominate the remainder of the film. The sadistic Vietnamese, like the slavering Turks in Midnight Express , shout gibberish at American boys and make them play Russian roulette, while they bet on the outcome. Meanwhile, more American boys, bloody and half-dead, are held prisoner in bamboo cages submerged in water. As they look on helpless, heavy gravid rats lumber across their bodies.

Michael survives all this, orchestrating an heroic, if improbable escape. Not only does he survive, he takes his pals with him, gulling, tugging, dragging them to safety. But it’s too late. Steven loses both legs; Nick loses his mind, disappearing A.W.O.L. into Saigon to play Russian roulette for the amusement of bug-eyed Asians.

Michael goes home, but he had promised Nick before they left that whatever happened, he wouldn’t leave him in Vietnam. So he goes back—searching through the human refuse of Saigon on the edge of defeat. Again, it’s too late. As it began on Steve’s wedding, the film ends on Nick’s funeral. After the burial, the survivors— Michael, Steve, Nick’s girl Linda (Meryl Streep), and their friends—sit around a table at the local bar singing “God Bless America.” Not a bad image for the end of the Vietnam decade: Americans, older if not wiser, huddled together, chastened quiet, but still proud.

The Deer Hunter has to be judged harshly because of the boldness with which it upends the historical record and the power with which it manipulates its audience. It is a lie from beginning to end. True, the North Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) may have, on occasion, killed civilians, but no one claims that they could have won without the sympathy of the people. My Lai was, after all, an American atrocity. Bach Mai Hospital was bombed by Americans, not Vietnamese. It was Americans who used carpet bombs, anti-personnel weapons, defoliants, and napalm. The Christmas bombing of Hanoi was conducted by Nixon and Kissinger, not by Pham Van Dong. It was the South that used tiger cages, not the North. It was Nguyen Ngoc Loan who shot his prisoner, not the reverse. Judged narrowly, The Deer Hunter is little more than Pentagon propaganda. It is a criminal violation of truth; Michael Cimino, little better than the Nazi apologists who deny the Holocaust ever happened.

Some people defend The Deer Hunter with the argument that it is not about the war at all, but a retelling of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness . It is certainly true that Cimino’s film is not really anti-communist, since the South Vietnamese are as barbaric as the North Vietnamese. The film’s racism is indeed apolitical, overwhelms ideology. Particularly memorable is the contrast between the scenes set in the final days of Saigon—terrified Asians frantically scrambling to board American planes and ships—and the scenes of Michael— careless of himself and motivated by the code of friendship— returning to Saigon.

To the extent that The Deer Hunter is a retelling of Conrad’s tale, it could have taken place in Africa, New Guinea, or Brazil, anywhere there are savages. The Vietnamese and their war are merely a backdrop for the moral drama of white Americans, the only people civilized enough to matter. The Vietnamese are not only dehumanized, they are derealized, reduced to metaphor.

But The Deer Hunter is not about the “heart of darkness” either, or at least not only about it. The film fairly throbs with a passionate, deeply felt male eroticism, and if it is about anything, it is about doomed male love. Michael Cimino’s first film, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot , is a boy-meets-boy bank-heist film in which there is also strong, barely submerged homoeroticism. Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges play male variants of Romeo and Juliet: These star crossed lovers can’t get it on because they are both men. They care a lot more about each other than for any of the women in the film; indeed, the film is unusual for its frank and undisguised contempt for heterosexuality. Heterosexual lovers are repeatedly humiliated— bound and gagged together naked, ridiculed, and so on. Meanwhile, Bridges and Eastwood kid each other about being gay, snuggle up to each other in a drive-in to evade the cops, and tenderly exchange cigars before Bridges, half beaten to death by a jealous pal of Eastwood, dies.

In The Deer Hunter , women are entirely peripheral not only to the action, but to the feeling among the young men—the real emotional center of the film. Michael is markedly uninterested in women. Meryl Streep, who gives a good performance without much to work with, tries with indifferent success to arouse him, and there is one brief love scene distinguished less by its passion than by its awkward, perfunctory nature. Pushing this point a little further, it would not be too far-fetched to conclude that the reason Michael survives, and Steven and Nick don’t, is that Michael is sexually most pure. Steven is married, and Nick has a girl. Michael’s pal Stanley (John Cazale) is the only one of the group actively interested in women, and he’s portrayed as a jerk. He’s immature and undisciplined, a bit to one side of the male bonding that unites the others.

This theme is not hidden. Stanley accuses Michael of being a “faggot” on several occasions, and Michael finally tells Nick “I love you” in the climactic scene. The best, most moving moments are among the men: hunting, fighting, drinking. In one scene, Michael tears off his clothes and falls against a metal pole, finally ending up on the ground, naked, back-to-back with Nick. You don’t have to be a Kraft-Ebing to know which way the wind is blowing. Nick dies and Steven is castrated (he loses his legs) not because of the Vietnamese, but because in Cimino’s world, male love is doomed, the return to society, marriage, and family is death to these men. Michael will probably go on to wed Linda, but this will be an anticlimax. These were the best years of their lives.

One of the best things about this film is the resonance the relationships have. We recognize them and, especially if we are men, respond to the sense of lost innocence with which they are suffused. But we can’t admire them, and the film never rises above the Hardy Boys virtues it celebrates.

One more point. Pauline Kael in The New Yorker has called attention to the Germanic flavor of The Deer Hunter . There are two hunting scenes in the film; after the first, the guys return to the bar, one of them plays a Chopin nocturne on the piano. “Beer sloshers savage breasts are soothed by music,” Kael writes, “it’s too much like those scenes in which roomfuls of Hitler’s lieutenants all swooned to Wagner.” All that’s missing is the lederhosen. Meryl Streep, as Kael notices, “has the clear-eyed blond handsomeness of a Valkyrie.” There’s a steamy shower scene in the mill that is right out of G.W. Pabst’s Kameradschaft . Michael cavorts on mist-shrouded mountain peaks, the slopes falling away around him in precipitous drops, while a heavenly chorus bellows Russian Orthodox chants on the sound track. He’s like the romantic hero of Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass ; the scenes recall the mountain films made in pre-Hitler Germany. According to German film historian Siegfried Kracauer, those films, with their enthusiasm for heights, rocks, glaciers, and dramatic cloud formations, expressed contempt for the ordinary mortals, the “valley-pigs” as they were called, who couldn’t make the climbs. “In the opening sequence of the Nazi documentary Triumph of the Will . . . cloud masses surround Hitler’s airplane . . . reveal [ing] the ultimate fusion of the mountain cult and the Hitler cult.”

Michael indeed triumphs through will and discipline. Nick calls him a “control freak.” He’s not quite one of the boys, but a distant, somewhat myserious Ubermenscb. If the term “fascist” weren’t so threadbare, so overworked, it would be tempting to call Cimino (he worked on the script of Dirty Harry ) our first, home-grown fascist director, our own Leni Riefenstahl. When Michael gets tired of telling war stories about the good old days in Nam to his drinking buddies, he just might amuse himself by organizing a Bund in the Pennsylvania hills.

All told, The Deer Hunter is a very distressing film. Its mixture of repressed homoeroticism, violence, and patriotism embrace the very worst aspects of American culture, those that led to Vietnam in the first place. Its popularity and warm reception by the critics indicate a failure to consolidate whatever progress was made in the ’60s toward confronting the underside of our national life. The Deer Hunter resolutely turns its face from the lessons of Vietnam and marches backwards into the heart of darkness.

Published in Seven Days , March 30, 1979

Republished in Peter Biskind, Gods and Monsters Thirty Years of Writing on Film and Culture , 2004 – pp. 86-91

• More: Michael Cimino , Movie reviews , The Deer Hunter , Vietnam war movies , War movies

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2 thoughts on “the deer hunter – review by peter biskind”.

Great review, you nailed the reasons why I don’t want to see it, and why it’s crap.

OMG. You are an idiot. Mike loves Linda and is idealistic. It’s obvious he has to feel something for a woman to be interested in something more. He’s not a womanizer. His best friend is Nick and there’s a tight bond. Mike can’t stand the freaks Stan tries to set him up with and Stan can’t understand why. It’s STAN who is gay. This is implied.

If a man can’t tell a close male friend he loves him without being gay ( thus it’s always romantic-in your mind) one could call that homophobic. As it is, you fail to understand what is glaringly obvious.

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Heart of the Hunter Review – Fast-Paced Action, But An Overly Complicated Story

Great action sequences, confusing narrative, and a bonafide hero to root for make for an entertaining escapist feature.

Heart of the Hunter is a South African Netflix action movie directed by Mandla Dube from a script written by Willem Grobler and Deon Meyer, who also authored the novel that inspired the movie. Featuring impressive fights and special effects, the movie, which was filmed in South Africa . follows a former counter-intelligence assassin on one last mission to prevent his country from being ruled by an evil politician (that’s probably a redundant way of putting it). 

The movie starts with protagonist Zuko (Bonko Khoza) killing a target at the height of his assassin days. As something went wrong with that final assignment, Zuko hung his blood-stained machete for good. Two years later, the former mercenary lives in peaceful domestic bliss with single mom Malime (Masasa Mbangeni) and her son. 

Zuko is pulled back into his past life when his former handler and friend, Johnny Klein (Peter Butler) knocks on his door. Within days, the cartoonishly evil and muscular Daza Mtima (Sisanda Henna) will win the upcoming election unless Zuko can get his hand on some damning files against him and deliver them to the right person. Knowing that Johnny is trying to take him down, Mtima orders his head of security, Mo (Connie Ferguson), to track him down and neutralize the threat.

As much as Zuko doesn’t want to get involved, talking to Johnny leads Mo’s men to him and endangers his family. Now, Zuko must race against the clock to complete Johnny’s final mission before Mtima’s people can harm his loved ones. 

Heart of the Hunter (Netflix)

Meanwhile, disgraced journalist Mike Bressler ( Deon Coetzee ) and his intern Allison start investigating Mtima’s alleged illegal dealings after receiving a tip from Johnny. Writing damning articles about the corrupt Mtima ruined Bressler’s career and reputation, and now he’s willing to stick his neck on the line to expose the evils inside the government. 

As far as action flicks go, Heart of the Hunter delivers well-choreographed violence, impressive special effects, and good-looking fight scenes. It features all the tropes we’ve come to love from the genre and even turns John Wick -esque towards the end. The performances are perfectly convincing, especially Bonko Khoz, who has all the attributes befitting an action hero – handsome, broody, and a badass.  

While this isn’t a terrible movie, the narrative is far too convoluted, and it’s hard to keep track of who the constant stream of new characters is. There’s almost no expositional effort into introducing who these characters are, how they know each other, or what world they inhabit. The viewer is thrown straight into the story and expected to already know the set-up. It’s like watching the two-part grand finale of a series that’s been running for at least seven seasons. 

Despite its flaws, Heart of the Hunter provides the perfect escapism for your casual weekend stream. It might be confusing to follow, but you never have to wait too long until something blows up or Khoz’s character expertly kills a bunch of nondescript bad guys.

I also delved into the ending of Heart of the Hunter , in case you are interested in how the film closed out.

Article by Lori Meek

Lori Meek has been a Ready Steady Cut contributing writer since September 2022 and has had over 400 published articles since. She studied Film and Television at Southampton Solent University, where she gained most of her knowledge and passion for the entertainment industry. Lori’s work is also featured on platforms such as TBreak Media and ShowFaves.

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