War Party

Pretty well-written and well-directed. The plot has holes, and there are the stereo-typical Caucasian jerks one expects to find in a story involving racial tension between two cultures. However, despite its failings, this film has a refreshing quality to it. The dialog is far more natural than one usually finds, and the characters mostly behave the way people really behave... mostly. Predictable? Yes, but I've seen far worse.

War Party (1988) was a film about the racial tensions that exist between the local Native Americans and their white neighbors. An annual re-enactment commemorating a vicious slaughter of Indians at the hands of the U.S. Calvary ignites a powder keg of racial anger that has been brewing amongst the youngsters. During the mock battle, two Indian youths (Billy Wirth and Kevin Dillion) defend themselves from a loud mouth yokel (Kevyn Major Howard) who decides to bring live ammunition to the show. Will the powder keg explode? Who will fall victim to this ignorance? Can the two races still co-exist after this tragedy?

A very underrated film. What I liked about it was that it dealt with an issue that still exist in this country. Even though it's not in the open, racial tensions between the whites and Indians will always be there. It'll take education and acceptance to do away with it. But many people are still ignorant to the fact. I wish this movie was available on D.V.D. I saw it most recently on satellite t.v. A very underrated movie that's still searching for an audience.

Recommended.

Yeah - I guess, I'm a typical guy, because I like mindless entertainment. Package it with decent acting, at least passable scripting, and good production values and I'll watch it.

This is a silly movie...A reinactment of a battle of settlers vs. Indians goes awry and people really start getting shot..... You can hear the people in the studios getting excited over this one as they dug deep for the money to finance it.

But really it's not THAT bad. You've got Matt Dillon's little brother (who I really like more, because he's more interesting) and you've got Billy Wirth (who, when this movie was made had appeared in The Lost Boys and nothing more). They can act though. The sets are good - (and let's face it - I love a western - even an implausible one) and the action is exciting, albeit stupid.

Okay, so the movie's no good - but it's a good kind of no good. It beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

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.