Tribes

I am an Air Force officer. I appreciated this movie's adherence to depicting basic training in a fairly accurate light. Placed in the context of early 1970's America, "Tribes" strikes a realistic balance between "hippie culture" and military regimentation. I partly expected the movie to take a sappy turn, whereby the entire platoon converted to flower-power and refused to fight. Thankfully, the ending is far more original, although saddening.

Jan-Michael Vincent acted superbly. Besides the classic 1980s Airwolf TV series, I was never really impressed by his acting ability, until now. Darren McGavin of "The Christmas Story" fame was excellent also, and the two interacted well on screen.

This movie is a fun Saturday afternoon commentary on the tension between the desensitization of military training and the desire to preserve individual values. I voted a 9 out of 10.

Richard Bejtlich

In 1970 the United States Marine Corps did for the first time in its 194 year old history draft men for the corp. That's how come a long haired hippie wound up at the training base with long hair and a poncho. This counter-cultural chap Adrian comes face to face with a tough but honest DI played by Darren McGavin who has a softer, more human side under his " I'm a Marine and that's all I am" hardshell leatherneck persona Adrian doesn't conform and uses yoga (which he teaches to the other men) to deal with marine corp training. The made for tv movie has an interesting ending I would give this movie **** four stars

I haven't seen this since my first viewing in 1970 but I remember the reactions of my peers ( I was 16) very well. We thought it was great! It was wonderful to see "one of our own" succeed against the military that threatened all of us at that time. It may be hard to understand today, but in those times of the draft, the Kent State shootings, and the war in Viet Nam, those of us with long hair or alternative views took pleasure in seeing those reflected in the popular media of the day which was anything but "alternative".

I gave it a 10, not because it's perfect, but I'm pretty prejudiced about it. "Tribes" is really part of a long tradition in the movies (the misfit becomes a model soldier because of the tough but decent sergeant), but of course it plays around with all the rules - in the first place, you're practically certain that the misfit WON'T be influenced all that much (or that he SHOULD BE), and in the second place, HE begins to influence the SERGEANT! Against his will, of course ("It's not my drawing!"). In spite of being made in 1970, it's far from being strictly a Vietnam-oriented movie. And it's even more than a "hippie vs. the Establishment" movie (though those are fine with me), but a lot more general (I've heard that it was endorsed by the Marine Corps, I guess because it they considered it pretty "balanced".) I don't know much about meditation, but one of the best scenes in this film has Private Adrian describing it to the other recruits, while they listen with "rapt attention", including Scrunch Gordon, the "jock" who hated him at first. Which is another thing - it does without genuine stereotypes, except for Earl Holliman's DePayster, who's nice enough in other scenes, but becomes an over-the-top redneck at the sight of Adrian. (And Holliman is completely entertaining doing those scenes.) Of course, it does have "stock characters", ones that work - like John Gruber as the tragic character, Danny Goldman as the completely comical one. (According to this listing, Bud Cort was in it, though I've never recognized him.) As far as the completely funny scenes, Darrin McGavin is really great in them, giving almost an Oliver Hardy kind of look sometimes (a little like his wonderful character in "A Christmas Story"). And he's never less than great in the other scenes (he and Vincent seemed to work perfectly together). And Jan-Michael Vincent is completely believable as Adrian (because of that, I've always "typecast" him as that kind of character, even though I've hardly ever SEEN him play a similar one).

As an ex-Marine, I was keenly interested in seeing this movie of the week rerun when it aired, I think at 2 am, but what the heck I was on night shift anyway.

First off, I liked it, I really liked it and not because it "took sides" because frankly I don't think it did. A VERY young Jan-Michael Vincent played the part of a spacy draftee quite well and Darren McGavin was his usual excellent self. Parts of the film were filmed at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) in San Diego, with real recruits going through drill training on the grinder. Even though it was filmed at the height of the Vietnam war, politics was left out of the film, but they did manage to show the conflict between the hippie and the more conventional recruits.

The best performance though was from Earl Holliman in my opinion. He played the hard-ass DI to the hilt and provided the strongest contrast to the hippie's live-and-let-live anarchy, even stronger than McGavin's character.

The movie didn't offer answers, nor did it preach about who was right and who wasn't (maybe that was the point anyway, nobody is really 100% "right" in any conflict).