I saw this film at the theatre when it was first released and hated it. Over the years I've read all the revisionist crap about how it's really a lost masterpiece, including some of the reviews on this site. So I watched it again on cable, from start to finish, every excruciating moment of it. This is not a misunderstood masterpiece, despite what the French may think (let's remember, they consider Jerry Lewis a comedic genius and Gerard Depardieu an action hero!). At two hours this movie would have been a mediocre western that depicted a historical event very badly. At it's actual length it's a mind numbing monument to one mans ego and the failure of studio bosses to reign him in.Every scene in this movie, and I mean every scene, is longer by at least half than it had to be, some scenes just go on and on to the point that you want to get up and walk away and not come back. There wasn't a single scene in this movie that didn't make me feel that way, not one. If a scene could have been done in five minutes it too twenty, if it could have been done in ten it took thirty. And then there were the scenes that didn't serve any discernible purpose at all and made you wonder why you were watching them. The movies pace was actually so slow that you find yourself leaning forward in your chair actually trying to will it to move faster. It never does. Even the climatic battle scene is tedious. It's also absurd, a bunch of settlers riding around the bad guys in opposing circles like Indians in an old 50's western. It's bad enough to have to deal with the tedium of viewing the movie, piling on with actions that just make no sense and outright stupidity by characters is the final straw. The only comment that I've heard that I disagree with is that Isabelle Huppert was wrong for her part. I thought she was fine considering the absolute disaster she found herself in. Other than that every single negative comment you've heard about this movie is true, times ten. Avoid it at all costs.

I take it that the standard review is something along the lines of just calling it a well photographed flop, which perhaps it was. I recall one reviewer who was terribly upset about the subtitles in a few of the scenes, but this is the fate of subtitles which are widely used in this world to give foreigners magical access to speech in other languages. In China the written language is nearly independent of how it is spoken so while they all speak differently they all write the same thing, more or less. So I am a great fan of subtitles. I once watched a film I had seen before and was quite surprised to see the subtitles. I had remembered what people said quite forgotten having to read those words. What interested me much more was a recurrent motif of people circling around in a ring with multiple rings having some go clockwise and some counterclockwise. We first see this in a grand ball around a tree. We see it again in a dance in Wyoming We see it finally in the various groups of gun fighters and cavalry circling one way or another around the rapidly diminishing feuding groups. I'm not sure what this all means but it is one of the main motifs in the film. I have not read through all of the other critiques so I apologize if this is redundant. I have not noticed it mentioned before.

I agree with Jack Landman. Twenty years ago I saw a butchered version of Heaven's Gate on a 23 inch TV screen. In retrospect, it was pointless. Despite being a film buff I don't remember if the film was shown on the big screens here in Blighty. Finally, thirty-seven years after its release, I've seen the 217 minutes version on Blu-Ray on a 56 inch Cinemascope TV screen with digital sound. It's a magnificent achievement and I salute the late Cimino for having the guts and persistence to hold out for his personal vision and artistic creation.I'm not sure where to begin. Yes, there are longeurs, in the roller-skating scenes, for example, and yes, some dialogue is difficult to pick up. Nevertheless, the set design, acting, particularly by Kristofferson, Huppert and Walken, and landscape photography by Vilmos Zsigmond and Cimino's directing are flawless. The film is beautiful, moving, disturbing and sometimes exciting. Cimino makes us care about his characters and shows us something of what frontier life must have been like in the final years of the 19th century. There's a backbone of fact in the grim events of the Johnson County War that makes a reading of contemporary historical accounts essential.Heaven's Gate is all a great film should be. It has the sweep of David Lean and touches of Sam Peckinpah in the final battle scenes. They rank with those at the end of The Wild Bunch. Praise doesn't come much higher than that!

Prolixity in film review should be outlawed. Out of courtesy I read 3 paragraphs from a certain review that went on and on. I couldn't stand it. I haven't watch "Heaven's Gate" so can't offer you anything helpful that would persuade you either way.It's about preference. It's what you like, not what others like in a film. The movie, it is said, initially received bad reviews and was the "decline and fall" of Cimino. That tells me it's probably worth watching. Always remember there's a certain amount of political, Hollywood wrangling that goes on in the process of making film. You rub someone the wrong way like Cimino mostly did, then no matter how good the film is chances are it'll get a bad rap. So do this: pick a rainy Saturday afternoon, along with your favorite munchies, get comfortable and watch "Heavens Gate". You'll probably enjoy it.