This is a "guilty pleasure" from my childhood, a film that I used to scour the TV guide for, anxiously awaiting the next Saturday Night airing. In the days before Tivo and VCRs, we were at the mercy of local TV stations and if we missed it...we may have to wait another year or more to see a movie again! Man, I love technology...but my bank account sure doesn't.

It's been many years since I've seen this film and the first time as an adult, now someone who recognizes a deeper issue than just bad guy yokels get karate-chopped by good guy. The film reminds me of John Lennon's song REVOLUTION where he sings, "But if you want to talk about destruction, Don't you know you can count me out...in". Lennon wasn't sure how he felt when he penned that famous tune so the song remains ambiguous...because everything may not be alright. It also reflects my own personal feeling of pacifism: I have a tatoo of a peace sign made of bloody barbed wire. WARNING!! MELODRAMATIC PERSONAL EXPERIENCE!! I was attacked by three thugs a few years ago and if I allowed them to stomp me, if I turned the other cheek or wasn't prepared to defend myself...I'd be dead. I fought back and injured 2 of them before THEY escaped...I must have went crazy for a few minutes bacuase they said later, after arrest, that they thought I was going to kill THEM. 2 are now in State Prison and the other is trying to get his life together, hope he makes it...but stay the hell away from me:)

BILLY JACK (Tom Laughlin, 1971, USA) Billy Jack attempts to find a peaceful focus in a world of corrupt Law, and in this political recipe of anarchy he must serve a cold dish of vengeance: a righteous morality that opposes due process. Billy Jack is the guardian angel of the Freedom School on an Indian Reservation, whose fists of fury must defend the innocent from the hate-mongers who hold power in the local town. The Sheriff is a good man but impotent to stop the tempest: when the law is at the mercy of money, its power tainted by the almighty dollar, then inequity replaces justice and violence subjugates peace. Director and star Tom Laughlin begins the film with the Deputy Sheriff and his rich cronies illegally hunting wild horses on the reservation, their meat worth 6 cents a pound for dog food. These beautiful animals are rounded up in a corral and held captive to be shot. Prosner is the contemptuous rich fat businessman who owns the town, and it’s obvious as he taunts his son that he is the film’s main antagonist. Beside him, the Deputy Sheriff wears a badge of tin, a meaningless shield that represents the prejudicial taint of this revolutionary era. Billy Jack struggles with his temper but he is reactionary, pushed to the limit by these mercenaries who hide behind unscrupulous ethics and consider themselves virtuous: they are rattlesnakes whose deadly social venom can only be survived by a victim who is bitten enough times to create moral anti-bodies. And that’s the metaphor for our protagonist who passes the test of the medicine man and becomes a warrior soul. Counterpoint to Billy Jack is Jean Roberts, the pacifist teacher of the school, and their conflict creates incredible friction: if you turn the other cheek you allow yourself to be victimized, or do you become the very thing you despise by resorting to deadly violence? Laughlin mirrors the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial in the guise of a Town Hall meeting where racism and conformity run amok, condemning the young students for their individuality and excersing their constitutional freedom of expression. The film offers no pat answers and herein lays the power, like a fist raised in the hot stagnant air, of the entire narrative. Jean is battered and raped and her abuser would have remained unpunished because of her passionate pacifism, but Billy Jack takes matters literally into his own hands and fulfills the Code of Hammurabi. Though the film wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, it asks questions rather than answering them, proving that morality is in the eye of the beholder. One thing is for certain, Billy Jack is not afraid of Death…Death is afraid of Billy Jack. (B)

hmmmm.

yeah, when i was a teenager we all cheered billy jack. but as i grew older i realized justified rage was just another excuse for brutality. i'm not so interested in that notion. you know what ghandi said: an eye for an eye leaves the world blind.

but i would never be one to stifle someone's guilty pleasures! dig in, baby...enjoy it.

I think Billy Jack makes it clear that when Law is corrupt, then the only means to justice is to fight back against the aggressors. I don't see the film as promoting violence as a first resort, but it counters the point with the pacifist character who holds in her hatred after being raped: a sacrifice to save the school. I would argue that her "turning the other cheek" allows others to be victimized. The rapist is later caught molesting a 13 year old girl: maybe if she reported the crime to the Sheriff that girl would have been spared. Of course, Billy Jack karate-chops him into oblivion and that form of "justice" can not be tolerated...but he felt it his only recourse since the criminal's father was a powerful politician in town. And there's the flaw in his thinking (or Laughlin's writing) because the Sheriff is an upstanding official, evevn if he is hamstrung by the old-boys club. Why didn't he report it to him or the State Police? And the evidence was piling up when the young boy was murdered too. The sytem would have done it's job (hopefully) but he gave in to his animal instinct.

I'm all for ordered anarchy...don't think it will ever happen. The weak almost always fall victim to those with more power. I see it every day, from domestic violence to child rape...cases that are all about power and control.

Phillip, the metaphor in Billy Jack is the Native American's abuse by the power structure of our country: I'm very interested in your take on this. Does the film seem trite and obvious in its arguments or sincere? If you get the chance, rent this and would love to hear more of your insights!

I liked this film a lot when I was in middle school. However Im reluctant to ever watch it again.

I suspect now that Im older, I wouldnt have the patience to overlook certain plotholes in the narrative or the overall message. Much like the guilty pleasure of a meal in a fast food restaurant, I want to enjoy the burger and fries without looking at the calorie count and worring about cholestoral. I would rather keep my happy memories of a small town hero fighting against the bad guys.

I haven't seen this movie ina long time. I wish I had seen your note here and caught it on tv.

I was very influenced by this movie as a young person. And a lot of friends were too.

Interesting, even then I knew wit was a metaphor of some sort. i wan't the sharpest tool in the shed in youth...but I felt this story was about standing up. Walking Tall was it's peer. Not so much about taking the whole law or violence as a vigilante...but to take a stand about right and wrong and good people and what is our society really built on. It made me question authority and social constructs.

I haven't seen the movie for a long time. I have friends in Toronto who named their Jack Russel terrier "Billy Jack" and it reminds me of how this movie touched a certain group of people to last for years in their lives. I've come to understand that the movie was a classic B-movie and maybe I'm afrai o have my childhood memory of this movie jarred heh heh,

but I felt the message was to question authority.