The Deer Hunter

So many of the elements are so good that it all adds up to a pity. Someone, or more than one -- writer or producers or director or editor or all -- fogged up about why this picture was being made and whether it was on the rails.

A film to be debated and argued over seriously because it is an earnest, serious and impressive work, despite the reservations it is necessary to have about it. In a thin and evasive year, The Deer Hunter joins a thin company that aspire to greatness.

The Deer Hunter might have been a superb document of the devastation to human lives caused by the Vietnam war... But director Michael Cimino allows the story to drag on past three hours, with endless scenes of male camaraderie and war atrocity.

Despite its faults, The Deer Hunter is a formidable work which asks a great deal of its audience. The graphic brutality of the Vietnam scenes are devastatingly rendered, and it is a pulverizing experience.

It is a flawed but important movie, both as a work of art and for what it has to tell us about ourselves.