The critic Peter Biskind saw in this “the very worst aspects of American culture, those that led to Vietnam in the first place. Its popularity and warm reception by the critics indicate a failure to consolidate whatever progress was made in the ’60s toward confronting the underside of our national life.” He concluded, “It is tempting to call Cimino our first home-grown fascist director.” An essayist in the New York Times labeled the picture “The Gook Hunter,” describing
