PodBill Just what I expected

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Made some 17 before the far more popular "Full Metal Jacket" the made for TV movie "Tribes" still packs the same kind of wallop now as it did back then, in 1970, at the very hight of the Vietnam War.In "Tribes" we have the freedom loving flower child Adrian Stone, Jan-Michael Vincent, passively refusing to conform to the US Marine Code of becoming a blood and guts American fighting man. Adrian's Marine Drill Sargent Thomas Drake, Darren McGavin,is mortified at Adrian's attitude and tries everything he can to mold him into the US Marine that he, the Sarge, is. In admiring his sense of independence as well as taking everything that he can dish on him leads the men of Sgt. Drake's Marine company to gravitate to Adrian not him in looking for both advice and guidance in getting through boot camp.Not only is Sgt. Drake disturbed in Adrian's Buddhist like meditation and mind altering tactics that enables him, among other things, to do feats of strength like holding up two 10 pond buckets of sands, in the broiling sun, for over an hour but that he's by far, without a formal education, the smartest man in the unit with the highest aptitude scores! It's not that long that the Sargent himself starts to admire Adrian and also sees what Adrian so tactfully brought out about his own, what he thought was, mindless doodling. Adrian tells the Neanderthal-like Drake that he has real artistic and creative talents that are just yarning to be released! This makes the hard as nails Marine Drill Sargent seriously feel that it's the sensitive artist, not blood thirsty killer,in him that's really the real Thomas Drake! Seeing that his good friend and fellow Marine Drill Sargent is getting a bit soft in the head, and becoming the laughing stock at the Marine Boot Camp, Sgt. Frank DePayster, Earl Holliman, starts to put the screws on Adrian by going out of his way in breaking his chops at every opportunity. This in spite of the fact that Adrian isn't even in his Marine unit!***SPOILER ALERT*** I did have mixed feeling about the end of the film with Adrian after taking everything, in spite of Sargent's Drake who had now come to his side, that the overly gong-ho and obnoxious Sgt. DePayster could dish out on him ends up going over the hill, or AWOL, and checks out of the Marine Corps for good. What Adrian went though at Marine Boot Camp was horrible but that's what was to condition him for where he, and his fellow US Marine recruits, were to face on the Vietnam battlefront. With Adrian's pacifist attitude in not wanting to shoot or even hold a weapon he would have in the end not only jeopardized himself but his fellow Marines in "Nam". Who were facing an enemy-the Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops-who were anything but the peace loving flower children that Adrian was!

cherokeecfg I saw this movie in 1970 when it was on TV. Eleven years later at the tender age of 29 I joined the Utah National Guard and went to basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC. The memory of this movie helped me to survive basic training. I remembered that the drill sergeants really wanted to yell at the hippie all the time, but as long as he did what he was told the drill sergeants had a hard time finding something to yell at him about. So when I was in basic training I tried hard to do everything I was told so that the drill sergeants wouldn't find a reason to yell at me. It helped a lot. Now I have a son who just went through basic training and I told him about the movie before he left and how it helped me. I consider the movie "Tribes" my key to getting through basic training.

emenon I was eight years old, when this film was released. I didn't see it then in 1970, however I saw in on a cable channel in 1990. Jan MIchael Vincient and Darrin McGavin were from two different worlds. Darrin a man of war, who killed men. Jan a man of peace and love, the hippie way of life. I didn't see very many hippies, during my childhood. Jimmy Carter allowed the hippies, who fled to Canada, to avoid the draft, to come back to the United States. How dare they! They didn't want to fight for their country. I had to register with the selective service prior after graduating high school, in the event of war. I liked this movie. If you saw The DI with Jack Webb aka Sgt. Joe Friday, he is lot like Darrin McGavin a tough Marine Drill Sergeant. He had a nonconformist played by Don Dubbins. He wanted out of the marines the same as Jan. Don even slapped a sand flea, which caused the whole platoon to suffer a punishment. Darrin said when Jan was dreaming about making love to his girl friend. If Shirley daydreams we will all take the wrap. While holding those weights, during drill, he was in another world. The other recruits wondered how he did it. The Sgt. got angry when his men were chanting and following Jan's way of life. Well that sums it up.

Skragg 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).