I just finished watching this film for the first time, a truly heart wrenching story that tares apart a loveable group of characters. I have never felt so horrible after watching a movie as this one. I will admit that I hardly cried, but I still felt like shit. The characters that Michael Cimino created are so completely flesh and blood that it's hard to get past the fact that this movie was in the hands of a screen writer the entire time.
That said, through the scenes of Russian roulette I had to remind myself that it was just a movie, and the entire fate of all the characters was in the hands of a screenwriter. The fact that the characters were in the hands of a screenwriter didn't really matter on one of the final scenes. I could only think that this screenwriter has his motives, and the characters are going to meet an inevitable fate.
All of the performances were solid, and whenever I asked myself if a scene was working... the answer was always a pure yes. I think that I loved almost every aspect of this film.
The only thing I would critique and say I would change would be the real life footage. It was kind of interesting that Cimino re-created these scenes from real footage, but the idea of dubbing in the real footage over the re-shot footage kind of dis orients the main focus or direction of the film, and I personally feel as though the audience may get into the wrong perspective with the true footage.
Other than that small fact, I believed this movie to be almost flawless. Periods of slowness, and a non-directional material from the beginning are very minor on the scale of this great movie. I really love it.