Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Lack of good storyline.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I cannot disagree with the previous summary more. Whoever they are, they have no pulse! Just watched the movie last night with my family, and everyone had a great time - and laughed themselves silly. After a bit of a slow start, we find ourselves faced with one of the most inventive families ever - and one begins to lose track of how many lies have been told. The movie also lampoons fads in general. It is truly bizarre what can capture the public mindset, but when fashions are created upon a fictitious tribe, you know they've lost the plot. Jenna Elfman practically Xeroxed her Dharma character from Dharma & Greg, but she was more than welcome. Her charm and energy are infectious. Richard Dreyfuss was at his sarcastic best as well. And the Shelmickedmu? Hamamas! (If you want to know what that means watch the movie). It was a crying shame it was hard to find on DVD, but if you can pick up this gem, you won't regret it. And you'll find yourselves coming back for more.

Richard Dreyfuss and Jenna Elfman made a very stupid mistake when they decided to add their names to "Krippendorf's Tribe," a disastrous film."Krippendorf's Tribe" is the type of film that falls under the category of mistake. The script, costumes and performances of the leads, Richard Dreyfuss and Jenna Elfman were all factors that drew me to this conclusion. Even the supposed romance between Dreyfuss and Elfman was a mistake as they had no chemistry.I gave this film my full attention for 90 minutes but it didn't live up to what I was expecting. One thing I noticed lacking from this film was comedy, true comedy. The jokes were poor, futile attempts at laughs. Furthermore, I don't remember laughing at all and if I did it was at them instead of with them.It was a sad sight to watch respectable actors such as Dreyfuss and walk around in awful outfits and star in this awful film. I'm really sorry I wasted my time on this film. The razzies were correct in making this the dullest comedy of 1998. They should have given worst actor awards to Dreyfuss and Elfman as well.

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

I was an anthropology major in college, and so was especially insulted by the field's infantile representation here. The idea that an anthropology professor could fool one person for one second with the ridiculous B.S. he makes up here is ludicrous. I believe this travesty of a movie has probably done irreparable harm to the field of anthropology. The overriding theme of anthropology is escaping ethnocentrism -- the belief that one's own culture is superior to another -- and by dressing up white kids in blackface and stereotypical costumes and having them run around chasing chickens, this movie is not helping. Now, all this could be forgiven if the movie was actually funny. Then it could be thought of as a comedic send-up of anthropologists, or whatever you wanna call it. But there are maybe two funny moments in the entire running time. Awful. Everything about this movie is disgusting -- From the bathroom humor to the cookie-cutter characters and formulaic script. Everyone involved should have turned down the money and stayed home -- no paycheck is worth being a part of this disgrace.