MovieChat Forums > The Deer Hunter (1979) Discussion > I don't care if others think this is unr...

I don't care if others think this is unrealistic.


I'm 66 so I was around during the turbulent years of the Vietnam War. My older brother served and by sheer luck, returned home. 58,000 American men didn't. the realistic aspect of this film is the emotional impact as we see the horror of war. Everyone that I knew that saw it in theatre, including me, were sobbing by the end of it. Not just crying a few tears, but emotionally devastated.

I think that this film, Paths of Glory and Come and See are the best anti war movies ever made. But that's just me. I in no way resemble a professional critic.

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You have great taste in film. I too think those movies are the greatest anti war movies ever.

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i saw this movie and thought it remarkable but, alas, my belief had been more than suspended, it had been duped. it took my coming here to read the obvious, such as how these guys were dispatched together and that one was making a career in russian roulette. thankfully comments these reviews and comments easily disabused me of the notion that this was a movie about the vietnam war at all but that the vietnam war was a loosely gathered backdrop accentuated certain features for a character study - and it was a great character study. "suspending belief" misses the point - this is purely a character study - what if small town characters were put into a war scenario together, what would a character be like if he played russion roulette two hundred times? i could have been a movie about earth's war against mars and not have played on people's viet nam sympathies and vulnerabilities.

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Some of the unrealistic points took me out of the movie a bit. Like the fact Saigon is falling but the wealthy are hanging around betting on Russian Roulette. Or how Nick has spent months (years?) as a professional Russian Roulette player. What are the chances he's survived dozens of these games? (Not good). I also found the story sort of nonsensical as opposed to moving.

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Unfortunately, 'Come and See' is just a Nazisploitation schlock disguised as a serious drama. The reason for such a disguise is obvious: all kinds of -ploitations were banned in the USSR and considered bourgeois. So the directors had to go to certain lengths in order to make such movies. Now 'Ivan's Childhood' and 'The Ascent' are so much better.

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