Billy Jack

"Billy Jack," eponymously titled for the lead character, is an entertaining movie, but without much substance -- that is what you get when you have caricatures -- a peace-loving, basically American Indian "Freedom School" versus the conservative redneck bad guys.

Billy Jack is played by Tom Laughlin, who does not look much like a half Indian. Also, altho he has martial arts fluidity against the villains, he is quite rigid in posture, the white man that he is. Like his split background, I thought his acting performance was uneven -- at times good, at times wooden. Let me comment that he was not impressive in the final scene, which was not moving to me. Jean Roberts (Delores Taylor), sort of Billy's love interest, runs the Freedom School. She is the passionate figure of the movie, but certainly only platonically.

One curiousity is what the director is trying to do with the character of Sheriff Cole, a compromising personality, but who overall seems to be presented favorably. A good man rather than bad like the rest of the town, he is unable and unwilling to mount an effective resistance to the bad guys tho he serves as a go-between, helps Billy and the Freedom Schoolers behind the scenes, and yes, once, rescues Billy, by, sort of, standing up against the beaters. Like Billy, he is totally outnumbered by pretty much an entirely bad white community, like the prosecutor in the Mississippi civil rights murder cases trying to convince the jury. But I say, his is a refreshing role to me, because he is, well, the most normal person.

So, American Indians have been mistreated? We all know that, but what does this movie tell us about it, the background, the problem as it exists today (OK, 30 years ago), the solution? So we have peace-loving hippies and Indians, whining, whining, directed at the bad guys, nothing else. So?

What was the Freedom School all about? Well, it opposes the establishment. We know. But what does it do, what do you learn, what do you accomplish, what are you prepared for? Well, we hear diatribes, but where are we going? Maybe inherently nowhere.

Thus, "Billy Jack" mainly functions for its superficial visual (and audio) images, spirit of the '60s. But the storyline still captures the viewer. There are the abusive bad guys, we are worked up against them, the guy in the white hat (sort of) comes to the rescue. And if we don't totally understand what the Freedom School is all about, we at least know some of its political stances, and something of its style, even if the way the movie presents them is silly.

This all adds up to an annoying sanctimoniousness that serves as a turnoff. Tho the conservative characters are stereotyped, they are developed better than the Freedom Schoolers, who are poorly acted, cheesy, and certainly not compelling.

The true irony of "Billy Jack" is that the pacifist Freedom School contradicts what made people go see the movie. How many went, or would go, to see it, and how many went to see the fight scenes? Anyway, the score is quite good.

... and you have to love the anti-violence screeds followed by onscreen massacres.

The start of the film really has nothing to do with Billy Jack. It is a deputy in the town having his runaway teen daughter returned to him. She tells him she is pregnant and she has been with so many guys she doesn't even know the father's race. Dad explodes in anger and beats her. The deputy panics and dumps what may be her "body" for all he knows out in the wild. Billy Jack finds the girl and hides her at The Freedom School - a counterculture alternative school with mainly native students, but the school is open to any kid with problems.

So the rest of the movie is based on the deputy's lie that his daughter ran away again, that she is pregnant, and that a boy at the Freedom School is the father. And weirdly enough, deputy dad never recants this story, and seems to come to believe it himself.

Now things were never great between the counterculture pacifist school and the traditional townspeople, but the story of the deputy's daughter brings things to a boil.

And in the middle of all of this is Billy Jack, a half native American ex special forces vet who protects the school - as best as one guy can - with physical force when he has to, and plus he really seems to enjoy it too. And the film gives you two hissable villains, town political boss Posner and his bullying cowardly son Bernard, always retreating to the safety of dad's shadow when his misdeeds get him in bad with Billy Jack.

This film only cost 800K to make yet raked in 33 million with largely wooden acting, a script that meanders and often contradicts itself, and lots of on location shooting so that expensive sets were not needed. So why did people flock to this little indie in droves? Because if you want to understand the Vietnam era and counterculture movement of the late 60s/early 70s I would say watch this film rather than the more famous and acclaimed "All In the Family". The hypocritical and racist townsfolk - often to the point of being cartoonish - actually symbolize how the oldest crop of the boomers saw the establishment. Billy Jack really did symbolize a hero as he had to be, where Jean was a hero/heroine the way people would have liked to be. And it had much to say about the ugliness of racism practiced by everyday people.

For film history buffs, I would say this film is worthwhile. It also has many quotable quotes, and if you look carefully you'll see Howard Hesseman (Doctor Johnny Fever of WKRP in Cincinnati) in a very small and early role as a drama teacher at the school who shows up at a hearing about closing the school and recites a speech that he at first claims is by George Washington, and then reveals it was written by Adolph himself. Not that this speech had anything to do with what the hearing was about, and such is the disorganized symbol of an era that this film became.

I recall seeing this movie at the theater. At the time I was a teenager ripe for the anti-establishment theme (and thrilled with the "cool " violence in the movie). I thought it was the greatest movie ever made. On re-viewing it recently, I couldn't believe how stupid I was. This movie is so bad it is laughable. You can almost feel the characters straining to get their point across. The plot is simplistic and the acting is. Of course, things have changed in nearly 30 years. My taste in movies is one of them.

Generation Xters will not have a chance at understanding this to the magnitude planned. Keeping things in proper perspective requires consideration of the time frame of this movie. In the real world we were still "in country"/Nam and getting very fed up with the associated atrocities both there and here. The differences between liberals and conservatives were at an all-time-high. This movie definitely leans to the left on many issues but only really to point out how important it is to not lose our humanity. It was really about a man who, disillusioned by what he saw his own country do overseas, came home to find the same thing. The fighting scenes were excellent for their time. The use of a hard style of martial arts was different and very impressive. Tom's execution of moves were both well done and in most cases reasonably realistic (maybe a few too many karate chops). The acting was anywhere between good to just adequate,,, which in some cases gave it a more realistic feel (less hollywoodlike).

Before the smug heroics of Steven Segal's characters there was Billy Jack, the original self proclaimed savior with an attitude. If you like to see self-righteous jerks stylishly beating up even bigger jerks then this is your movie. Each fight scene is setup explicitly for Jack to do an affected restraint merely as a taunt before dispensing his own brand of justice. The spoiled, morally depraved Bernard seems to exist only for the purpose of angering the audience and thus justifying his punishments at the hands and feet of Jack.

Ostensibly about taking a stand against a corrupt authority and abusive bigots 'Billy Jack' is mostly a guilty pleasure for pacifists who feel they've been pushed around long enough. Jack's own claims of trying to be less violent seem hollow as he relishes every punishment he dishes out. He functions as the darker id or alter ego of the peace-love generation.

If not taken nearly as seriously as it wants to be 'Billy Jack' can be enjoyed for it's low budget earnestness, in spite of its somewhat conflicted messages.