My Film Education: Billy Jack

Intro

I was born on June 25 in the year 1979. Many movies have come out in the 34 years since; a ton beforehand. If you've done the proper math, you'll realize that I grew up in the golden age of Spielberg, Lucas and those type of guys. My childhood soundtrack was a steady dose of John Williams (with a special shout-out to Alan Silvestri for no other reason than Back to the Future is right up there with any great Williams score of my early years). I love a good movie and unfortunately, there are quite a few notable flicks that came out before I was born that I've neglected to see. So, every so often, in this age of movies at our very fingertips, I'll fire up a classic and jot down my thoughts about it.

Billy Jack

With the passing of actor Tom Laughlin recently, the Billy Jack series was brought to my attention. I had a vague notion of these movies based on seeing DVD covers and whatnot over the years, but really had no idea what they were all about. Just some old movies about a dude with a hat. Turns out, they're good old fashioned vigilante movies about a dude in a hat. Or are they?

Billy Jack was the movie I saw, which I gather is second in the series that started with Born Losers.Billy Jack is a half Indian/half white Vietnam Vet and former Green Beret with some sweet karate moves that usually ends with his foot buried in some racist's face. Billy Jack, the second movie, follows the travails of a free spirited learn-what-you-want, leave-when-you-want school on the Indian reservation and how the townspeople mistreat the students (which appear to be made up of Indians and hippies) when they make their trips into town. A sheriff deputy's daughter ends up pregnant (probably by a loser Indian scum, to his thinking) and after beating her, she takes refuge in the school out of the town folks' jurisdiction. These are nonviolent, pacifist kids led by a nonviolent, pacifist school marm, so they are easy targets for the bullies of town, which are led by a town leader's son of course.

Fortunately, they are watched over by the not as quite a pacifistic thinker Billy Jack who feels as though it's his duty to throat punch anybody stupid enough to start any sort of shenanigan's with these peace lovin' kids. The Sheriff himself is on Billy Jack's side, but his hands are tied most of the time because of the evil white non-hippie types that actually run the town. He does what he can to protect Billy Jack, but that doesn't go too far. When Bernard Posner, son of the imposing MISTER Posner, runs afoul of Billy Jack, things begin to get messy.

You would think this would lead to a Kill Bill-like carnage filled whirlwind of vengeance and broken bones, but you would be a bit mistaken. See, this movie tries to be a bit more than that. There is surprisingly little Billy Jack led martial artistry, but a lot of the school drama hippies acting out scenes for class. They use their wicked drama skills to try to win over the townspeople in a less bloodthirsty strategy of bringing about a sort of peace between the two factions.

This is a movie that tries to be about themes of peace being a better alternative than violence. Which is weird when it draws you in based on the martial art skills of it's title character and star. Most attempts of violence and vigilantism lead to dire consequences. The movie wants you to see how cool Laughlin is, but show you that roundhouse kicking evil rich high and mighty in the gut is really not the best way to go about these sort of things.



Look, I like what the movie is trying to do and admire it's attempt to rise above typical 70s grindhouse fare. But it can drag between action set pieces. A big deal is made out of the fact that Billy Jack is part Indian and they are on Indian Land and the school is in Indian Land, but aside from a character or two at the school, there are hippies coming out of the wazoo. They love to act, sing and question the man. The townspeople are befuddled and frightened by these non-white kids and the unwashed longhairs that are their friends. And for the time that the movie came out, it probably struck a chord. It was probably head and shoulders above what other flicks of time were trying to do. If you're coming to this movie because you heard it's about a karate kicking ex green beret who kicks through a whole throng of townspeople, you may find yourself fast-forwarding a lot. Aside from a couple of scenes near the beginning and the obligatory stand-off at the end of the movie, the action is very lite and the social commentary is through the roof.

The acting is by a lot of non professionals and I've seen a lot of criticism for the amateurishness of it all. For me, it really wasn't that bad. I've seen bad acting before and in this movie it came across as kind of charming. The lines aren't said with the same gutsy confidence of a great actor, but something about some of these line readings came across as more natural and real because of it. That's just in my mind, though. It could grate on the ever living nerves of other people if they chose to dwell on it.

What I love about the film series is that its the brainchild of it's star, Tom Laughlin. I'm not totally up on the whole back-story, but from what I have heard, he figured if people weren't gonna put him in a movie he wanted to be in, he'd just write, direct and star in one himself. He was one of the forefather's of independent film, it would seem. And the movies became a success, so that's very good on him.

I'm glad I watched the movie. Not exactly what I expected going in based on the vigilante theme of justice I heard about beforehand. I don't know that it was all that good a movie for me, but it held my attention for the most part and entertained me at others. I don't feel as though I wasted two hours of my life, but I don't know that I would ever revisit it. I'm also unsure if it had my interest enough for me to go ahead with the sequel, The Trial of Billy Jack. I certainly don't have an itch to see it right off hand. However, the character himself is interesting and mysterious enough for me to be intrigued in maybe visiting another movie with him sometime in the future. I guess we'll see.

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