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 enlarge | Director: Michael Cimino
Actors: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep
Studio: MCA/Universal Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $5.71
You Save: $9.27 (62%)
New (45) Used (41) Collectible (8) from $5.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  282 reviews
Sales Rank: 4483
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 183
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
DVD Layers: 2
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: D20177D
ISBN: 0783225997
UPC: 025192017728
EAN: 9780783225999
ASIN: 0783225997
Theatrical Release Date: February 23, 1979
Release Date: March 31, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** Cover May Differ** Over 1.5 million orders shipped worldwide and more than 500 000 items in stock, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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| Customer Reviews:
 Spin the Revolver March 26, 2008
What can we say about this unusual character study of small town men and women from Pennsylvania who are faced with a paradox of two worlds. One at home and the other a world away. The accent is not so much on Vietnam, but on psychological effects of growing up in America with all of the traditions and life that we had all come to know in the late 1960s, and the aftermath of experience in a violent, war torn country on the other side of the world.
Each character handles that experience differently, but all are profoundly affected by the practices and atrocities committed to them during a short period of captivity. This is the consistent theme of the movie and the sharing and commitment of brotherly love.
The movie garnered top honors, and deserved just about everything it received. But perhaps the secret of this picture is that you cannot walk away from it without being affected by it in some manner. In the end, you share in the loss, because the depth of character study is so deep.
This movie is not suitable for young viewers. But it is perhaps very important to be seen as an adult. Never in the field of psychological study has a picture so effectively dramatized post traumatic stress disorder in this fashion.
The details can be discovered among the hundreds of other reviewers here as to the how and why. I cast this review for the purpose that in the many films recommended that you see during your life if possible, this is certainly one of them.
 Xtreme Russians playing Russian Roulette March 23, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
The movie is long and the story is slow, be prepared.
The story is about three Russians from a raucous Russian community (in the US, of course) playing Russian roulette. They learned the trade the hard way from no one other then the (former) Mother Soviet's (former) client North Vietnam Communist (VC for short,) in a tumultuous tour of duty sponsored by no one other then the (former) War Department of the US.
They learned well and two of them went on to become Roulette Masters (RM) only because the third man disqualified himself when he fell from a rescue chopper and bolted to a wheelchair for life.
One RM returned to the US in full glory, molted into a pacifist and began educating his reckless townsfolk by pulling triggers, roulette style, on them. Meanwhile the other RM remained behind (in Vietnam) and prospered against the odds of the Russian roulette, then a popular mind-blowing game North and South. For a long time he sent his winnings to his handicapped comrade who dicided to stay in the VA madhouse (I mean VA).
The irony was, eventually, these two Russian RMs faced each other in the game. The story ended with a funeral.
Claded heavily in politics that you may choose to disregard, since the mindless history does repeat itself.
GREAT!!!!!!!! February 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
as always you get what you want to see...even though some of the most horrific `shots' i hide my eyes. Love to bring back the nostalgia..and regret to see the war horrors. FUNNY...still going on w/Mr. President.
Lessons Forgotten February 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The first lesson that "Deer Hunter" teaches us from Vietnam is that the veneer of civilization is much thinner than we imagine, more a tenuous translucent surface of a bubble than even a layer, easily disrupted, easily burst. The Russian Roulette games that occupy the middle of the film are metaphoric for morality disintegrated. It was a graphic illustration of how cheap the value of life became as seen through American eyes in those days. More importantly, Deer Hunter addresses the question of coming home after one's civilized veneer has been stripped away. Christopher Walken's character never does. Though he physically survives the war, his soul dies; there was no coming home for him. John Savage's character comes home, but leaves his soul behind along with his legs. Only DeNiro's character manages to find some inner peace back home. In the pivotal scene where he takes away John Cazale's pistol and plays the game on Cazale, we see the frustration of many Vietnam vets over the ignorance of those who stayed behind, with our pollyannish naivete, but also a reaffirmation for the simple value of life. DeNiro at peace lets the deer go. Unfortunately, the ignorance of those who did not learn the lessons of Deer Hunter have doomed many to repeat the experience. The chickenhawks who evaded Vietnam are still waving their pistols drunkenly about, but their ammunition is much more deadly.
 Not the masterpiece it once seemed, but not the propaganda its detractors claim either February 16, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
For all the naturalism of the presentation, the plot of The Deer Hunter is melodrama and metaphor, sometimes effective, often contrived, and seen today it's hard to get over how the main characters seem far too old to be going to Vietnam. Indeed, the film itself seems so much less impressive than Heaven's Gate today that it's surprising that this is the one the critics feted. Not that it's as bad as the revisionism that subsequently hit it would have you believe, but a lot of its original power has been diluted by the better films about Vietnam that would follow it. There's definitely a feeling of avoiding saying anything about Vietnam: this could almost be any war, from Korea to WW2, leaving much of the last act a 70s Best Years of Our Lives.
The biggest revelation watching it again is how good Robert de Niro used to be, leaving you with the suspicion that the pod people got him and replaced him with a lifeless hack who gets his assistants to phone in his performances while he's down at the bank cashing the checks these days. It's a surprise to see how engaging and credible an actor he once was. Unlike his later work, he seems less selfish here and able (in the first half at least) to connect with the other actors in the ensemble rather than constantly standing apart, which makes the character's feelings of disconnection with his old life far more effective in the latter part of the movie. Similarly, Meryl Streep is surprisingly natural in an early performance before everything became a veritable computer program of meticulously planned mannerisms and inflections that bore increasingly little relation to human behavior, while Christopher Walken didn't have the baggage that would increasingly prevent him from playing regular guys onscreen.
Although Universal's 2-disc Legacy edition has some interesting extras, the UK 2-disc edition is the best available, with commentary from Cimino, who is also interviewed on camer, as are Vilmos Zsigmond and John Savage. Scary anecdote from the interview with a now very scary looking Michael Cimino (imagine a blonde Truman Capote in sunglasses playing an alien on Dr Who and you're not even close): for the scene where De Niro holds a gun to John Cazale's head and pulls the trigger, De Niro asked for a real bullet to be put in the chamber - and Cazale agreed!
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