Billy Jack

Some reviewers are lambasting this film as being "pretentious", and otherwise unreal. Well...it IS unreal, it's a MOVIE. If it's politically incorrect, so what??? I watch movies for the entertainment factor, not the reality factor. If you want reality just turn on the 6 o'clock news. As for the karate, it must be a popular thing considering the success of Bruce Lee's films (and now Jet Li). Yeah, it's a movie about an ex Green Beret who defends the school kids because he wants them to live without having to fight the way he does...so that makes him a big brother figure trying to change the future for the kids. Come to think of it, isn't that what our government is always doing...bomb the heck out of somebody so we can live in peace??? Maybe Billy Jack should have run for president! Then he would have had political immunity and not had to go to jail.

You don't get/watch this movie for the production values. You don't get this movie for the 70's nostalgia or the flower-power hippie esque themes.

You get this movie because of a very simple thing. Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. This movie is about having the courage to do what's right - no matter the cost.

Billy Jack is the archetype of the great protector who turns to violence because sometimes it's the only way. And this movie is the 300 of the seventies.

Ironic how true it all rings when we look at the battles Tom Laughlin had with hollywood and with the government when it came to making and screening the Billy Jack Movies.

Like many children of the 70's, I was fascinated by this yarn in the day. I saw it several times and dutifully saw "Born Losers" ( a exploitation re-release that features Billy Jack's character, and a far better film) as well as "The Trial of Billy Jack" (the third installment and even worse than this outing). Years later, it's enlightening to realize what we have outgrown from our youth. The acting, directing and production is pretty awful, but forgivable. The ideology spouted in this stinker is a fast food bastardization of the worst "hold hands and sing together" hippie trash.
Tom Laughlin plays the title role of former Green Beret and reclusive half-breed protector of a southwestern "Freedom School" where love interest/head schoolmarm Jean (Delores Taylor) and her doltish charges harbor runaways,perform dreadful improv and guerilla theatre and generally get under the skin of redneck cowboy law enforcement in their town.
When Jean protects the runaway daughter of local lawman, tension come to a head and Billy Jack must step away from the pacifism he and Jean cherish and lay gratuitous Kung Fu beatdowns on local bullies.For martial arts fans, the payoff are far and few, if you enjoy rape scenes ( and I sure hope you do NOT!) there are a couple of man-with-knife-doing-bad-things-to-women scenes that appear as salacious panders to this element.

If watching the Freedom School kids travel around like a Marxist Partidge Family in their stupid hippie bus doesn't make you dread Flower Child nostalgia, you will surely be disgusted by the use of violence to market non-violence, the lecturing moral high ground tone of the films message and the all around insipid style of this useless atrifact.

(NOTE* all martial arts in the film are performed by Laughlins stand-in, the great Master Bong Soo Han, and if you look closely you'll notice a distinct physical disimilarity between Laughlin and the man doing great roundhouse kicks)

A silly 70s propaganda film in the vein of Reefer Madness and The Eternal Jew! As a matter of fact, let's just call it Liberal Madness, because that's about all it is. I still have to give it a reasonably good star value because it is so entertaining.

Billy Jack is a Native American vigilante who's only occupation is being the deus-ex-machina character in the little scuffles that a local hippy commune continually gets themselves into. The head of the commune is a homely spinster schoolmarm. Actually homely isn't strong enough, there probably isn't a word strong enough to describe her, so let's just say she looks like her face was carved out of wood with a butter knife.

To fully understand this movie there are some certain rules, laws of the Billy Jack universe you have to understand. The most important rule is that all white people not of Native American descent are pure evil, redneck, axx-holes that have nothing better to do then attack hippies and Native Americans. While Native Americans, and hippies in general, are loving pacifists that merely want to do their own thing.

That's basically the meat of this story, Hippies annoy rednecks, rednecks annoy the hippies back only they do a better job, and Billy Jack comes riding in on a white steed to save the day. The real joy of this movie is watching how crazy the leftist hippies are. All they do is perform weird skits, do drugs, and sing horrible off key sing-a-longs.

Occasionally they go "into town" where they act weird and annoy the normal people until they can't take it anymore. Then the normals do something harmless like dump flour on them to try to coerce them to leave, and what happens? Billy Jack sticks his big nose into things and beats the crap out of them. Then the pacifist hippies cheer because it's ok that someone else used violence just as long as their hands are still clean.

Even though Jesus was a pacifist, the most important pacifist ever actually, the hippies don't mind mocking him in one scene where they are preparing to do a skit about a pregnant girl. "How about the world is really fxxxed up and needs a savior...but this will be a modern one; it doesn't have to be like the old kind...Jesus."

Finally the residents of the town cannot take the hippies causing them trouble all the time and they call a town meeting. This is where things really get funny. Of course if you take this movie too seriously you could become outraged at just how immature and stupid the hippies act, but I assure you, for me it's all laughs. There's actually a lot to be learned here though, as the libs to this day use a lot of these same plays and tactics. For example, when a rude hippy gives a fake name, "OK Coralis" and is chided he responds, "That is my real name! What do you have something against Mexicans? I don't see any on the board!" There's also the classic "famous quote shtick" where you take a patriotic quote out of context and ask who said it, surprise, it's Adolf Hitler or some other dictator.

The ruthless and completely irreverent hippies make more and more noise and personal attacks about the town council showing complete disregard and lack of respect, even though the council is trying their best to listen to them and answer their questions the hippies only grow increasingly hateful and angry. So much for pacifism.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, the tension between the hippies and the normals escalates and a war breaks out, with Billy Jack once again fighting their battles for them.

The acting in this movie is beyond amateurish, it is obvious that a lot of it is just made up on the spot, or read from a cue-card as their lines come off so stiff and emotionless that it is obvious that we are watching the first take of every scene, no need to waste film after all.

The lefties haven't really updated their playbook after all these years so there's a lot to learn from this little time capsule. Pair this up with the complete fools the lefties make themselves look like and you've got a fun campy classic.

I love this movie as much today as I did seeing it growing up. Ok the fact that Tom isn't hard on the eyes is one thing but I love the story line.
I love watching him kick the crap out of the bad guys! Ok give it a break it's an old movie and the quality is that of that time era...which I would give anything to go back to. The music is good. Coven's version of One Tin Soldier is amazing. The kids in the school ...love it! Love those rebel stand up for what you believe in songs!
Give me these good old movies over the garbage of today anytime!