>>So the movie was doomed not on its merits, but on the times that were changing (for the worse, IMO).
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>The only thing wrong with your theory, other than leaving out that Cimino was an egomaniac after success, is "The Deer Hunter" was not about Vietnam. The heart of the movie is the early part, the buddies back home in Pennsylvania. "One shot," the DeNiro character says. That is his code. The raucous wedding reception is as good as anything on celluloid. It's also a pleasure to watch Meryl Streep when she was young. She has not tried to disguise the passing years -- and a tip of the hat for that -- but she was stunningly beautiful when she was young.

That's what you saw - to each their own. The latter part, with all the Russian roulette and the rest of the Southern underworld wouldn't work without the early part, and vice versa, the wedding by itself would be pretty pointless without what happened later. I take that as a whole (though it's been decades since I last saw it - maybe it's time to find it again).