Freaktana
A Major Disappointment
Aiden Melton
The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Predrag
Great performances by Dreyfuss and Elfman make this movie work wonderfully and make you laugh so hard you think your going to cry. This film is put together in a way it's sure to make you laugh. Professor James Krippendorf (Richard Dreyfess) is a Professor of anthropology and also a widower. Down in depression he ends up using the universities grant money for his own personal use. Faced with either confessing and going to jail, or going on with his fairy tale tribe. He chooses to go on with his made up tribe the Shelmikedmu. Using his own 3 kids and back yard for filming. He comes up with the most unique tribe ever seen before. Also with the help of his over anxious colleague Veronica Macelli (Jenna Elfman) who wont leave him alone. He ends up going deeper and deeper into his fairytale tribe, and trying to keep up with his lie. They end up taking the tribe national.Dreyfus handles the comedy with aplomb as he has done before, with the help of a supportive cast. It was nice to see Phil Leeds one last time in a couple of very brief appearances in a crowd scene. He was one of those talented character actors who always added that bit of spice to a production. This movie is very well put together, and just so ridiculous you got to laugh. In the end you will wish you were Shelmikedmu too. It's definitely worth seeing.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.
Wuchak
"Krippendorf's Tribe" (1998) stars Richard Dreyfuss as the titular grieving anthropologist who is compelled to hoax an isolated tribe still living in the Stone Age. Jenna Elfman plays his assistant, Natasha Lyonne his daughter, Stephen Root his boss and Lily Tomlin his rival. As my title blurb says, this movie spoofs Academia and the Tasaday hoax. If you're not familiar with the latter, a supposedly isolated tribe still living in the Stone Age was "discovered" on the Philippine island of Mindanao and prominently featured in a 1972 issue of National Geographic. In 1986 it was discovered that the Tasaday were simply members of known local tribes who put on the appearance of living a Stone Age lifestyle under pressure from Manuel Elizalde.The movie's silly and fun, but not laugh-out-loud funny, although there are a handful of mild laughs. That said, humor's a personal thing, which explains why some people find this movie funny. I don't, but it's likable and quietly amusing. If you're a fan of Dreyfuss and Elfman it's a must. The film runs 94 minutes and was shot in the Los Angeles area and Ka'a'awa, O'ahu, Hawaii. GRADE: C+
Avid Climber
Krippendorf's Tribe has achieved something special, an incredible balance of fun and smarts accessible to all.There's a bit of exaggeration that will hold the interest of those who want primal fun, but little enough as not to displease those who do not want to be submerged by unrealistic situations.The intelligent humor of the dialogs and scenario will easily enthused those who need smarts to appreciate a comedy, but not so much as to rebuff those who do not want to work their brains to laugh.The acting is without reproach, even if a few of the secondary characters are a bit caricatured. The photography, soundtrack, and editing are as perfect as they are invisible, yet remarkable. The story is without logical flaw.A must see, easily enjoyable by anyone.
churchofsunshine
I didn't walk into this film with terribly high expectations. It was in the bargain basement bin on DVD at my local store, and quite frankly, since only fifty people have bothered to comment on it on IMDb (so far) for a film made not so long ago in 1998, tells me that this comedy largely went under most peoples radar nets.This is a Richard Dreyfuss vehicle and the basic concept is that he is an anthropologist who has taken out a grant of money from his university to search for lost tribes in New Guinea, but after the death of his wife has kind of let his research go to pot and used the money instead to keep food on the table for his three children - Shelley, Mickey and Edmund. Put on the spot by the university to give a lecture on his discoveries so far, Krippendorf invents a tribe called the "Shelmikedmu" (an amalgamation of his children's names) and gets them to dress up in native gear in his back-yard to shoot fake videos and keep the university faculty off his back. Jenna Elfman plays the love interest, a fellow professor. The villain, or main antagonist, for want of a better name - a fellow professor who tries to prove that it is all a hoax, is played by Lily Tomlin.It is relatively amusing in places, especially when Dreyfuss puts on the body paint to become the "Shelmikedmu Chief", and there are certainly one or two good one-liners to be found within. It's a long way from ever being a perfect 10 as a film, but equally there is no way it should ever be sitting down at the bottom as a 1. There are worse comedy films out there than this, and although somewhat insubstantial and not especially memorable, it is an entertaining enough way to spend ninety minutes of your life. 5/10
