The Deer Hunter

Released: December 8, 1978

Studio: Universal

Genre: war epic

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 48.98 Worldwide: ?

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 176.50 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Michael Cimino

Screenwriting: Michael Cimino, Louis Garfinkle, Quinn K. Redeker, Deric Washburn

Starring: Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep Directing: Michael Cimino

Review:

This is a “disturbing, emotionally powerful film” ^FS is “still America’s most controversial (and affecting) movie about the U.S. experience of the Vietnam War.” ^T98 “This sensitive, painful, evocative work packs an emotional wallop.” ^LM The story focuses specifically on Michael (De Niro), Nick (Walken), and Steven (Savage), three Pittsburgh steelworker buddies “who hang out in bars and hunt deer.” ^FS “Steven is getting married while Michael and Nick compete over the affections of Linda (Streep).” ^FS

Their “lives are irrevocably changed by a tour of duty in Vietnam” ^A98 in which they are captured by the enemy and “among other things, …are forced to endure a game of Russian Roulette in the P.O.W. camp.” ^FS

“De Niro is classic as the force that gets them out of a sadistic Vietnamese riverside prison.” ^VD He returns to Vietnam to try to rescue his “estranged friend Walken” ^A07 who regularly plays Russian Roulette “in a back alley of Saigon.” ^A07

This was director Michael Cimino’s second film. He’d debuted in 1974 with Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, “a cult crime caper starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges as the titular characters.” ^FS However, his career was destroyed by the disastrous epic Heaven’s Gate (1980).” ^FS