The Deer Hunter

This is the first mainstream Hollywood picture to present a dissonant take on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict. Robert De Niro is excellent in the lead role. Christopher Walken won the Best Supporting Actor award for his work here. He is worthy of it, too. Meryl Streep is luminous here, appearing in only her second film. Unfortunately, the story is lacking. The latter half of the film is overly reliant on Russian Roulette set pieces. This is unfortunate. The Vietnam War provides plenty drama - there is no need to add this artificial, heavy-handed element. People squaring off across a table from one another, revolvers in hand again and again, gets to be too much. The last half-hour of the film is particularly miserable. Things feels forced. The premise of "The Deer Hunter" is good - this is a film that needed to be made, with a point of view that needed to be heard - but the execution is unsatisfying.