User Comments for Deer Hunter, The

Cody Lee (9 out of 10 )
Robert DeNiro is excellent

jesse (9 out of 10 )
Yawn. Then the roulette game began and it was cool. Then yawn.

Mr. I Hate This Movie (1 out of 10 )
I hate this movie it's so boring. The only good part is the action in Nam. The ending sucks!

Andy (10 out of 10 )
This movie is perfect, even the boring bits are important to understanding it. The performances by Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken are nothing short of incredible.

Gregory (10 out of 10 )
An excellent script for an excellent film.

k (10 out of 10 )
Amazing movie. If you didn't like it, watch it again and try to see the deeper meaning.

Sam (9 out of 10 )
Hey Mr I Hate This Movie, maybe you thought it was boring because you didn't understand it. You don't have any brain cells do you! This movie is great and is worth watching, don't listen to him.

Dean (10 out of 10 )
I loved this movie and the storyline. I have yet to find a copy of the actual re-written script by Cimino that was used in the film. Does anyone know where to find one. Washburn's original script actually has the characters of Nick and Michael flip flopped and the ending is quite different as well.

Shaun (10 out of 10 )
The best film ever made. DeNiro was phenomenal, not quite as good as he was in Taxi Driver, but damn close. But by far, Christopher Walken did the best acting ever done, ever. His transformation was incredible. How the Russian Roulette situation changed him mentally forever. Walken's last scene where he killed himself, and the exchange of words and the visuals between him and DeNiro was in my opinion the best scene ever done.

Dale Cooper (10 out of 10 )
It's rather easy to label this movie as too long - specifically the beginning. If shortened, however, this film would be far from the same. As 'slow' as the start may seem in comparison to the Vietnam sequences, it's an essential setup - an elaborate painting of the lives of our characters - their families, their values, their culture, their friendship - all the things that the war tears to bits and pieces. Without them, all the latter scenes wouldn't have half the impact and "The Deer Hunter" would just be another war movie.

Callan (2 out of 10 )
This movie had such a slow and pointless first hour. Most of this movie consisted mainly, of the building of what seemed a lifeless relationship between the main characters, of whom I found impossible to follow throughout the movie. This movie wasn't what everybody has said it was, it was dragged on and to sum it up, barely anything happened throughout the whole movie.

Pete (10 out of 10 )
Alright. This is definitely the best war movie ever made. Shaun, I like your enthusiasm, but there are better movies and better performances out there. Don't get me wrong, this movie is in my top 10. But, if you're going to talk about the greatest film of all time, take a look at the first 2 godfathers again. Deniro and Pacino in part 2 provide 2 of the greatest performances ever. But back on subject: if you don't like the deer hunter, you probably think transformers is good. I.e, you're retarded.

Cliff Emery (9 out of 10 )
Friendship is a word that implies 2 or more people interacting on their own stages in life. If you are a loner you will not understand the love of friendship. This film is about friends and the love for each other even when apart. This is not solely a war movie it is about feelings and the need to be a part of a friendship, all be it a male bonding. After all these years I still feel hurt with the loss of the friends in this film. I feel sorry for those who cannot feel the writers passion. DeNiro AND Walken were magnificent and the script was a phenonemal blend of characters and emotion. I feel sorry for those who thought this was a War Movie.

Malcolm (10 out of 10 )
This is one of the most depressing and unforgettable movies for me. It starts slowly as it builds up the relationship of the men. Suddenly, they are caught in the horrors of the war in Vietnam. Then they go home to find that everything has changed. Or maybe not. I an understand if someone says it's too long, but to call it as a sucker is unimaginable. It's a masterpiece.

bryony1 (10 out of 10 )
A lot of these posts reveal a callous youthfulness because they don't know anything about the '60s Rustbelt, Vietnam, torture, bravery, etc.

flubndub (8 out of 10 )
Classic anti-war movie. I like the action packed movies like Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan and the like as much as the next guy. But this is a actor's movie. Robert DeNiro leads a great cast. The Vietnam scenes are harsh but are a small part of the movie. It's a long movie and strangely quiet. I think it is intended to show the affects of war more than actual war itself. If you know this before you watch it you will find this is a great movie. Cimino made this movie so good the Hollywood machine never wanted him to do it again. But Heaven's Gate is another story.

Mark S. (2 out of 10 )
"The Deer Hunter" film is one of my all-time favorites, but the script posted here is hardly even a rough draft. It has none of the staggeringly complex allegorical elements of the final product, nor the heartfelt interplay of most of the characters. Are we to assume that Cimino did all of the re-working of this script, or is there a Derek Washburn later version of this that became the shooting script? I would argue that there is literally not a single scene in this version we have here that is in the final film. Not one! Someone worked some incredible magic in transforming this overly crude, unmoving mess of a first draft into the polished masterpiece that it eventually became. I would love to know more about what went into this transformation.

Dirty sock (10 out of 10 )
I think Malcom up there is on the right track. This story is about more than just the war, but, the war ends up being the defining theme of both the collective memory of the film and the experiences of the men featured in it. They live their lives with family, friends, and a community that they are very much a part of, with a bond built between the men around hunting deer and relying each other. They are abruptly faced with a war that takes them to another world where they live the experience from separate perspectives sharing the same view. The bond they forged in their youth is tested when they come back to a surreal world that kept changing without moving, and they set out to hunt down one of the men left behind. After locating him, they find him a broken shell of a man, unable to survive in any of the world's he left behind and no hope of movingforward. With their home town now a muted shadow of concepts they formerly found so important, another hunting expedition is arranged. The men find themselves estranged and separate when a buck that would have been a trophy they valued for the rest of their lives, in what used to be their own separate world, steps out and reveals itself to Dinero. His motivation to kill the deer is gone, replaced with a desire to keep the hunts of the past going, along with his recognition that he may be just as broken, with his goals no longer what he once valued. The deer walks behind a rock face and Dinero is left looking for something worth pursuing. Few movies deal with the consequences of war as well as deer hunter, it's a sobering reminder of the costs we pay.

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