Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Dec 25, 2022 11:37:21 GMT
I've heard quite a lot about this film over the years but had never actually seen it until it was on BBC2 a few weeks back and I recorded it, I watched it a few days ago.
It's very good and well acted, but I have a couple of reservations. It's about three friends who work in a steelworks in Pennsylvania and they get sent to fight in the Vietnam war, Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep are in it and the acting, particularly from De Niro, is top class. It's too long, a wedding reception scene early on is massively too long, it drags on interminably, at least half an hour, just of people dancing to really crap music and it could have been cut to five minutes, it adds nothing really to the film.
When the action moves to Vietnam, some Russian roulette scenes are a bit implausible, there has never been any evidence that the Viet cong made prisoners of war do this.
On the plus side, the photography is excellent, I like the locations, both the industrial town in Pennsylvania and the Allegheny mountains, and the scenes in Saigon just as the Americans were pulling out are very well done.
Overall I would say 7 to 8 out of 10.
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Post by Charles Bronson on Dec 25, 2022 22:27:54 GMT
The Deer Hunter is a film I've never got round to watching properly. I did watch about ten minutes of the opening scenes around the time the film came out but I didn't fancy it so turned it off missing the part where the action moves to Vietnam.
Talking about the Vietnam war I was shocked the other week to read from a couple of different sources that the Americans offered the French nuclear weapons to sort it out before they themselves got involved in the war.
Charles.
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Post by Dirty Epic on Dec 26, 2022 11:13:08 GMT
It's a long watch Charles but worth it, very good without giving trying to give too much away.
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Post by Charles Bronson on Dec 26, 2022 11:20:59 GMT
Thanks D.E. I will make it my business to watch it soon.👍
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Dec 26, 2022 19:48:27 GMT
As the film was a commercial success and was critically acclaimed, the director, Michael Cimino, was given pretty much free rain for his next film, Heavens Gate. Unfortunately, this was an absolute disaster, hugely over budget, a massive flop and regarded as rubbish. It very nearly bankrupted the studio, as a result, Hollywood then started playing it safe with dumbed down action blockbusters into the 80s
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Dec 26, 2022 19:58:59 GMT
It's a long watch Charles but worth it, very good without giving trying to give too much away. Bambi gets it.
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Mickyosan
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Post by Mickyosan on Feb 17, 2023 23:01:31 GMT
I’ve seen it a few times over the years and although it’s admittedly long, it tells such a harrowing story and some of the scenes are incredibly gripping, primarily the Russian roulette ones, which once you’ve seen, aren’t forgotten.
The mental health issues suffered by many of the characters is central to the story and it’s really only De Niro who keeps himself together, sometimes seeming like the glue that keeps the group together but even then it’s hard on him.
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