War Party

Probably I've watched this movie half-a-dozen times, once with a white theatre audience close to the rez and the rest on tape with Blackfeet high school students. The student attitude was summed up by a handsome young man who sighed and remarked, "The first time you see it, it seems pretty good, but after about the third time, it just falls apart." The theatre audience just didn't like it, period.

It was fun to see friends and neighbors in a movie. Locals grew fond of the actors while they were in town. But the whole line of argument that drove the plot meant nothing to the people it was supposed to be about. Sure, there's racism -- but it comes to us as job discrimination or court systems or broken families or drug peddlers. Renegade kids are not romantically pursued over the landscape by caricature bad guys. (What the heck was the idea of Rodney Grant's character, anyway?) They just get picked up speeding or something -- by officers who are Indian -- and end up quietly taken to jail.

I hated the faux samurai ending, romanticizing death in a place where suicide is a problem. Plainly this was a movie written by people who didn't want to know anything about reality and didn't care what impact their movie had on the people to whom they were supposed to be sympathetic. It's a projection of themselves, a continuing problem for Native American films and one that has mostly been solved so far by Indians making their own movies.

During a peaceful reconstitution of an old battle between Indians and American soldiers, an Indian is killed with true munitions by a boozed white man and racial tension explodes again and again and again...

The first sequence is unique, beginning with a close up of a feather flowing to the corpse of a dead Indian, then we discover more and more surprising situations. There are a lot of surprising situations, shot in amazing Montana locations.

What a pity, War Party is unavailable in br or even dvd, only in vintage VHS or on YouTube. It really deserves recognition. Director Franc Roddam has shot very few movies, I've only seen Quadrophenia about mods in England, at the total opposite of War Party. Hanx PG.

I remember when I was about 13 years old this movie was filmed in my hometown and on my reservation. I was very anxious to watch it and eagerly looked at the places I lived near all my young life as they appeared onscreen.

Being an enrolled Blackfeet Indian it is easy for me to get caught up in the whole nature of this film, because, after all, this is a film about Blackfeet indians. I choose to look at it in a different way though. The plot is far fetched to say the least and the movie is quite silly all together. I enjoyed watching it, but it's not an altogether good film. It really doesn't make any profound statement or stir up any topic of discussion. If this was a movie that was intended to take an in depth look at indians and then provoke some sort of emotion, well then, it failed completely at that direction.

I choose to believe that War Party was made to be entertaining and not thought provoking though. A sort of "what if this really did happen" type of movie that gives the watcher a chance to see a wild happenstance that wouldn't occur in todays society. An interesting film if you are a film struck young man who has grown up in the area where it was shot, but not much more than a boring night in front of your tv and VCR if you are anybody else in this world. The most significant accomplishment this movie has done is it helped launch the career of Billy Worth who is now foraying from acting and becoming a director to reckon with in the near future.

Long and forgotten, this movie depiction of young Native-America is indeed a heart twister and adds fire to the burning soul. I was fortunate enough to see this film the year it was released, and was blown away with the story concept. I believe with the exception of "Kevin Dillon" (who by the way is an incredible actor), really wasn't convincing enough to play even a half-breed in this particular film.

Strongly enough, however he does manage to pull it off, even though he wasn't my first choice for this film, I have viewed his performances in other astounding movies such as "Platoon" and the sort, where his personal character finds more of it's true calling. Just not this film. Overall however it is a powerful cut and slowly sucks you in, with a surprise bar fight confrontation that later turns out to be more then was expected, of course leading into the courageous plot of the film. Where you just want to see the Indian's win, just this once. But do they? Well you'll just have to hunt this bad boy down to find out.

But "Good Luck" trying to find this flick especially on DVD it's a tough one. Especially since it blew over so many peoples heads, the first time around. As for me...I still can see the vivid storyline as it echoes through the spotlights of my mind, even several years later. Great story! But quite underrated! A film you'll never forget. If you ever get the chance, See it!

In the 1988 version of "War Party" we see the classic struggle for justice and equal treatment that all our Native brothers face. The whole underlying theme to this film would be the issue of racism in and among our border towns. I liked the movie more when I was 12 years old than I do now understanding the reverse effect movies like this sometimes bring. I feel that it was a great film of its day. Billy Wirth had an outstanding performance as "Sonny". I would have liked to seen him play more parts in films such as this one. Bradley N.C.