The Deer Hunter

Michael, Nick, and Steven are only three of a group of friends and coworkers at the local steel mill in their small town of Clairton, Pennsylvania. They and most of their community blue collar of Eastern European heritage, but they are the only three in the community who will imminently be heading off into combat in Vietnam. In the days before they leave, they will attend to a few items. Steven will marry Angela in a lavish event for the entire community, and the male friends, without him, will go deer hunting the following morning, a highly ritualized activity especially for Michael. Steven is not the only one who will leave behind a girl. Nick also will in a serious relationship with Linda, she wanting to escape the abuse inflicted on her by her alcoholic father. Besides hers, there are many issues underneath the otherwise happy and joyous surface of the community, that surface joy only ramped up with the wedding and everyone, including the three subjects, seeing Michael, Nick, and Steven as the honor and duty of them all and of the country. They will find that the community hopes of their time in Vietnam is not what they want, their experience there which will inextricably be tied to the way they deal with life, with those that head home, either wanting or able, unwilling or unable to express how the war has damaged them. They may be the only ones to help the other(s) who didn't come out the other end in one piece, either physically or emotionally.