Reception
The film's initial reviews were largely enthusiastic. It was hailed by many critics as the best American epic since Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. The film was praised for its depiction of working-class settings and environment; Cimino's direction of the performances by De Niro, Walken, Streep, Savage, Dzundza and Cazale; the symphonic shifts of tone and pacing in moving from America to Vietnam; the tension during the Russian roulette scenes; and the themes of American disillusionment.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars and called it "one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made." Gene Siskel from the Chicago Tribune praised the film, saying, "This is a big film, dealing with big issues, made on a grand scale. Much of it, including some casting decisions, suggest inspiration by The Godfather." Leonard Maltin also gave the film four stars, calling it a "sensitive, painful, evocative work". Vincent Canby of the New York Times called The Deer Hunter "a big, awkward, crazily ambitious motion picture that comes as close to being a popular epic as any movie about this country since The Godfather. Its vision is that of an original, major new filmmaker." David Denby of New York called it "an epic" with "qualities that we almost never see any more — range and power and breadth of experience." Jack Kroll of Time asserted it put director Cimino "right at the center of film culture." Stephen Farber pronounced the film in New West magazine as "the greatest anti-war movie since La Grande Illusion."
However, The Deer Hunter was not without critical backlash, especially in light of the film's controversial use of Russian roulette at its center. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a positive review with some reservations: " a small minded film with greatness in it ... with an enraptured view of common life ... enraging, because, despite its ambitiousness and scale, it has no more moral intelligence than the Eastwood action pictures." Andrew Sarris wrote that the film was "massively vague, tediously elliptical, and mysteriously hysterical ... It is perhaps significant that the actors remain more interesting than the characters they play." John Simon of New York wrote: "For all its pretensions to something newer and better, this film is only an extension of the old Hollywood war-movie lie. The enemy is still bestial and stupid, and no match for our purity and heroism; only we no longer wipe up the floor with him -- rather, we litter it with his guts."
The film holds a metascore of 73 on Metacritic, based on 7 reviews, and 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews. The RT summary reads:
Its greatness is blunted by its length and one-sided point of view, but the film's weaknesses are overpowered by Michael Cimino's sympathetic direction and a series of heartbreaking performances from Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken.
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