The Deer Hunter: Critic Reviews

Its feelings for time, place and blue-collar people are genuine, and its vision is that of an original, major new film maker.

It is a heartbreakingly effective fictional machine that evokes the agony of the Vietnam time.

A disgusting account of what the evil Vietnamese did to poor, innocent Americans stands at the center of this Oscar-laden weepie about macho buddies from a small industrial town.

The film is ambitious and it succeeds on a number of levels and it proves that Cimino is an important director who deserves to be watched carefully.

This excruciatingly violent, three-hour Viet Nam saga demolishes the moral and ideological cliches of an era: it shoves the audience into hell and leaves it stranded without a map.

The friendship between the three central characters, as well as their shared association with the men from their small hometown, is truthful and realistic in a way that most guys will find impossible to resist.

The first half and second half of the film couldn't be more different but that is the genius behind the film.

Like an honorable soldier, Cazale gave everything he had for a cause in which he believed.

Gauging the shifting moods of the 1970s, this tale of life and love disrupted by war is as arresting as a bullet to the brain.

A visceral film that says volumes about the horrors of war and its impact on the lives of typically well adjusted people.

This is probably one of the few great films of the decade.

A simultaneuosly touching and harrowing experience that puts the audience directly in the shoes of one man's experience of Vietnam.

a hollow movie that only play-acted at meaning; the sucker was us.

Draggy and devastating by turns

An emotionally devastating meditation on war, masculinity, and the human psyche.