The Deer Hunter (1978)
The famous Russian roulette scene has become iconic and basically the only thing I knew about this film beforehand. So I wasn’t expecting entirely what it actually was, especially the long winded wedding scene. The roulette scene is basically the middle of a very long prologue and an equally long epilogue. It built some contrast, but I think it could have been achieved differently. I honestly didn’t get much out of the first hour.
Where Platoon was a war film taking place directly in the battle zone, this seems to more want to built a symbolic take on being at war. The Russian roulette in itself may not be historical accurate, but it serves to illustrate the randomness of whether one lives or die in war. The constant looming threat of getting shot and killed with little to no control over how and when. An effective metaphor, but I think it gets a little overused.
Rating: 3.5