Michael Cimono’s war drama film that came out in 1978, with a star-studded cast including the likes of Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage, is a film set during the Vietnam War. It has been almost forty-five years since the release of the movie, so let us take you back in time as we tell you more about the film along with its end.
Based, in a way, on an unreleased script called The Man Who Came To Play, the producer of the film, Michael Deeley, not only bought the rights to the script but also had Cimono make certain changes to it and with the help of Deric Washburn, the two were able to come up with such a critically acclaimed screenplay.
Despite going over its set budget and time schedule, the movie ended up being a huge success, with fans and critics not being able to praise Cimono’s direction enough. In the present time, it remains a timeless classic that touches upon relevant themes and has a well-loved cast.
With a supporting cast of Meryl Streep, John Cazale, Shirley Stoler, Pierre Segui, Amy Wright, George Dzundza, and many others, the film ended up getting nominated for a total of nine Academy Awards, out of which it bagged five, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Supporting Actor, which Walken took home.
Many still consider this film, The Deer Hunter, to be one of the greatest films to be ever made in America, and maybe it was this praise, after all, that got the film entered into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The story of the movie follows the lives of our three leads, played by De Niro, Walken, and Savage, who work as steelworkers, but because of the Vietnam War, they find their lives completely uprooted.
One aspect of the film that continues to receive praise from the fans is its cinematography, and rightfully so, as the film includes beautiful shots from places like Pennsylvania, South of Pittsburgh, and Vietnam, of course.
The Deer Hunter Plot
The film opens in the year 1968 as we are introduced to a loving community of people, revealed to be Slavic Americans living together while looking after one another in a small town in Western Pennsylvania. Our leads are three steelworkers working in a steel mill, and are named Mike, played by De Niro; Steven, played by Savage; and Nick, played by Walken.
They live a mundane life working in the mill by the day, and hunting for deer with their other mill co-workers called Axel, Stan, and John, by the night. But the onset of the Vietnam War and the American draft system means that the men will, once again, have to go to war for the country and have their lives put to a halt.
Mike, Steven, and Nick are shown preparing for the military duty that has them now placed in Vietnam for service. As the three prepare to leave, we meet the other characters of the story, including Steven’s fiance, named Angela, who is, though engaged to Steven, drowned completely in an affair with another guy.
Not only is she cheating on her fiance, but she is also revealed to be pregnant with the other guy’s child. And if you think this is complicated, then Nick and Mike’s situation might surprise you even more as both of them seem to be deeply in love with the same girl named Linda.
Linda also does not have it easy, as she hails from an abusive family headed by an alcoholic father. Before they depart for their mandatory calling, Steven and Angela continue on with their relationship, with Steven still in the dark, and the two hold a wedding ceremony with all of their friends.
Mike, Nick, and Linda are also present for the celebrations, and while dancing and enjoying, Nick swoops in, and at the right time, while dancing, he asks for Linda’s hand for marriage. As sudden as it was, it had to be done, and Nick had to make a move, considering the trio would have to leave soon.
Before they leave, they decide to go on one last hunt together, where Nick begs Mike to make sure he returns from the war alive. Their hunt ends with Mike taking a deer down by shooting it point-blank.
Tragic War Time
We skip some time and move to the start of the year 1969, and the three friends have not really been stuck together like they were back at home. Mike has become a member of the special forces, and after spending time apart, he accidentally stumbles upon Nick and Stevens in a village in Vietnam.
What was supposed to be a time of catching up ends up becoming a situation of life and death, as the three get captured by the Viet Cong, who throw them in a cage and force them to indulge in a terrible game of Russian Roulette.
Steven fires the first shot and hits the ceiling, which gets him thrown into a cage drowning in dead men and rats. Mike manages to get a gun with a total of three bullets, which both he and Nick use to escape, obviously taking Steven along with them.
As they float down the river, by which they had been captured and kept, Nick gets his leg shot, but thankfully, they get saved by an American chopper. Just as they are about to be saved, Steven falls into the river, breaking his leg, and Mike follows his fall in hopes of saving him.
Mike carries Steven all the way to Saigon, where there are other refugees. Nick is taken to a US military hospital where he gets physically treated, though his post-trauma stress worsens. He wanders and ends up, once again, in the middle of a game of Russian Roulette, where he ends up shooting himself.
Life Back At Home
We skip some time again, and the year is 1970, and Mike has completed his service and returned home to Pennsylvania. However, the trauma of the war does not let him live a very normal life. While he prefers staying in a hotel to his home, he ends up visiting Linda, and during this meeting, he learns that Nick has also returned but is living in isolation.
He also pays a visit to Angela to find that she birthed a baby, but her condition does not seem to be great. His other mill co-workers, Stan, Axel, and John, do not understand what he and Steven must be going through and continue to live the same life Nick, Steven, and Mike were living before the war.
On finding Steven’s hospital, Mike visits him to find that he has become disabled, with both of his legs having been amputated and one of his hands so injured that it has been rendered useless. His fall into the river back in 1969 ruined him for good. He is adamant about spending time in the hospital and does not wish to come home, knowing that he is going to suffer and nobody will understand him.
He reveals to Mike that he has been receiving a lot of money from Vietnam, and Mike finds out that it is Nick, after all, who has been sending him money. This meant that Nick never came home and must have settled somewhere in Vietnam.
The Deer Hunter Ending Explained
After forcing Steven to go back to Angela and live with her, Mike sets on a journey back to the country that ruined their future for good. He enters Vietnam in hopes of finding his lost friend, Nick. Mike enters Saigon, the place where they got separated.
Back when Nick was being treated at the military hospital, he had entered Julien, a French Businessman’s gambling den. Mike bumps into Julien once again and begs him to take him to the den. And just as he had hoped, Nick was there, probably sucked into his trauma so much he did not even recognize Mike.
He had become a professional at gambling, and despite Mike’s attempt of trying to make him remember his other life, Nick could not be brought back. He caved into his trauma, forgot about his life outside of the gambling den, and was now a drug addict with no plans of leaving the place.
It is during one of Mike’s attempts at clearing the fog that was covering Nick’s memories that the latter is reminded of the hunting trips they took back in Pennsylvania. Remembering Mike’s technique of getting the prey with one clean shot, Nick does the same. With a gun pointed at his head, he gets himself with one clean shot.
Right before the credits roll in, we see Mike and his other friends attending Nick’s funeral, sad and silent over his death. Finally realizing what the three must have been through, John gets emotional and starts humming the song God Bless America. The movie ends with everyone present joining to sing the song to celebrate Nick’s life.
There is a whole generation of people who would relate heavily to this movie. As you watch the film, it hits you how real this is for a specific set of people. Be it the Americans who were drafted for war or the Vietnamese who suffered because of it.
It can be easily divided into three portions: one where the three friends have normal lives and a future ahead of them, where they indulge in activities without being scared for their lives. The second one would be the one where they lived through the trauma. The war period, where they witnessed people dropping dead and bullets firing toward them, was the second phase.
And the last phase was them returning home to a life they do not remember. It shows the cruel reality of the aftermath of a war, where people are expected to go to war, put their lives in danger, watch their fellow men drop dead, and then come back to zero understanding from their families to live lives that hold no meaning to them anymore.
The movie does not end with a pastel-colored happy ending, instead on an outright sad note, which is another attempt at making it clear that some things don’t end nicely and actually end up having seriously negative consequences on people’s lives. And the only thing we can do is live with the memory of it all, knowing that there is no going back.
The division between these parts is prominent yet subtle. The movie is a great commentary and a must-watch for those who enjoy troubled war dramas and disturbing endings.
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