Billy Jack is a 1971 American actiondramaindependent film, the second of four films centering on a character of the same name which began with the movie The Born Losers (1967), played by Tom Laughlin, who directed and co-wrote the script. Filming began in Prescott, Arizona, in the fall of 1969, but the movie was not completed until 1971. American International Pictures pulled out, halting filming. 20th Century Fox came forward and filming eventually resumed but when that studio refused to distribute the film, Warner Bros. stepped forward.
Still, the film lacked distribution, so Laughlin booked it into theaters himself in 1971.[1] The film grossed $10 million in its initial run, but eventually added close to $50 million in its re-release,[2] with distribution supervised by Laughlin.
Plot
Men from an unnamed western U.S. town herd wild mustangs into a remote pen to be illegally slaughtered as dog food. The county's corrupt political boss Stuart Posner tells his son Bernard to shoot the first mustang, but he refuses. The men are interrupted by Billy Jack, a mixed-raceNavajo[3] and Green BeretVietnam War veteran, who orders the men to release the mustangs; he fires his rifle when they refuse. They release the animals and Billy Jack rides away on his horse.
Sheriff Cole brings Barbara, a teenage runaway, home to her father, Deputy Mike. Barbara tells Mike that she is pregnant, but she does not know who the father is, as she had sex with numerous men, including several who were not white. This angers Mike and he punches her in the face. Barbara runs away to the town doctor. The doctor and Sheriff Cole fear that Mike will abuse her again if she is sent home, so they arrange for her to live at the hippie-themed Freedom School without telling him. The townspeople and the counterculture students at the remote school seldom interact, so it is unlikely that anyone from town will notice that Barbara is living there. The school's director is Jean Roberts and Billy Jack is the school's protector. Barbara is initially uncomfortable at the school but feels more welcome after Jean encourages her to participate in improvisational theatre. Barbara befriends Martin, a Native American student.
Freedom School students visit the town. Bernard and his friend Dinosaur harass students who are being refused service at an ice cream shop because the group includes Native Americans. Martin lunges at Bernard, who punches him. Billy Jack, seeing this as he arrives outside, enters the shop and beats up Bernard and Dinosaur. Billy Jack attempts to leave but is confronted by Stuart Posner and many male townspeople. Billy Jack performs a hapkido kick, hitting Stuart in the face and knocking him down, and beats up numerous other men using hapkido, but they overwhelm him. Sheriff Cole defuses the situation by amicably greeting each man by name and suggesting that they go home. Cole refuses to arrest Billy Jack, implying that if he arrests him, he must arrest everyone.
Stuart Posner and the town council propose an ordinance limiting when the students can visit town. The students attend a council meeting and express opposition. Council members agree to visit the Freedom School as a compromise. Barbara stays with Billy Jack at an ancient Native American ruin so no one from the town will see her at the school; Mike goes to the school looking for her but is thwarted because she is absent and the students peacefully resist. Council members attend an improvisational comedy performance at the school. They agree to allow the students to hold street performances in town, amusing the townspeople.
Bernard attempts to sexually assault a female Freedom School student in his new Chevrolet Corvette, but is stopped by Jean and Billy Jack, who give Bernard a choice: either Billy Jack will break his elbow or he can drive the car into the nearby lake. Bernard chooses the latter and is subsequently berated by Stuart in front of other men.
Billy Jack undergoes a Navajo initiation in which he is deliberately bitten by a large rattlesnake. Bernard and Dinosaur watch from a distance and contemplate shooting him.
Bernard kidnaps and rapes Jean. Jean refuses to tell Billy Jack because she fears he will attack Bernard, undermining the town's newfound good will towards the school and possibly forcing its closure. Meanwhile, Barbara miscarries when the horse she is riding stumbles and she falls off. The town doctor reveals that the baby would have been white. Bernard finds out and lies to Mike, telling him that Martin was the father. Mike kidnaps Martin; Barbara, who has fallen in love with Martin, offers to come home if Mike lets him go. However, Martin escapes, Bernard and Dinosaur give pursuit, and Bernard shoots him dead.
Billy Jack finds out that Bernard raped Jean and killed Martin. Billy Jack catches Bernard having sex with a 13-year-old girl; Bernard produces a revolver, but Billy Jack evades the shots and kills him with a hapkido hand strike to the throat. Police show up at the school with search warrants, but Barbara and Billy Jack escape and barricade themselves in an abandoned church. There is a climactic shootout with police and Barbara is wounded. After Jean tells him that she loves him, Billy Jack surrenders in exchange for a decade-long guarantee that the school will be allowed to stay open with Jean as its head, and that Jean will be given custody of Barbara. As Billy Jack is driven away in handcuffs, a large crowd of supporters raise their fists in a show of defiance and support.
Billy Jack holds a "Fresh" rating of 65% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews, with an average grade of 5.4/10.[4] The website The Grindhouse Database, and the book Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War list this movie as belonging to the vetsploitation subgenre.[5][6]
Film critic Leonard Maltin at first gave Billy Jack 3.5 stars out of 4, calling it "Uneven in spots but tremendously powerful." Later, he downgraded it to 1.5 stars, writing, "Seen today, its politics are highly questionable, and its 'message' of peace looks ridiculous, considering the amount of violence in the film."[7]Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4 and also saw the message of the film as self-contradictory, writing: "I'm also somewhat disturbed by the central theme of the movie. Billy Jack seems to be saying the same thing as Born Losers: that a gun is better than a constitution in the enforcement of justice."[8]Howard Thompson, writing for The New York Times, agreed, calling the film "well-aimed but misguided" as he wrote, "For a picture that preaches pacifism, Billy Jack seems fascinated by its violence, of which it is full." He added that "some of the non-professional delivery of lines in the script by Mr. Frank and Teresa Christina is incredibly awful."[9]Variety magazine opined that "the action frequently drags" and at nearly two hours' running length, "The message is rammed down the spectators" throats and is sorely in need of considerable editing to tell a straightforward story."[10]Gene Siskel gave Billy Jack 3.5 stars out of 4, calling it "a film that tries to say too many things in too many ways within an adequate story line, but it has such freshness, original humor and compassion that one is frequently moved to genuine emotion".[11]Kevin Thomas, in the Los Angeles Times, also liked Billy Jack, praising its "searing tension that sustains it through careening unevenness to a smash finish. Crude and sensational yet urgent and pertinent, this provocative Warners release is in its unique, awkward way one of the year's important pictures."[12]
Gary Arnold, writing for The Washington Post, panned Billy Jack as "horrendously self-righteous and devious", explaining, "Every social issue is dramatized in terms of absolute, apolitical good and evil. The good guys... are next to angelic, while the bad guys are, according to the needs of the moment, utter buffoons or utter devils. Anyone with the slightest trace of skepticism or sophistication would tend to reject the movie out of hand and with good reason, since this kind of simplification is dramatically and socially deceitful."[13] David Wilson, in The Monthly Film Bulletin, wrote: "If in the end Billy Jack is as much a sell-out as any glossier version of commercialized iconoclasm (Billy Jack is persuaded to accept guarantees which a hundred years of Indian history have repudiated), there is enough innocent sincerity in the film to demonstrate that Tom Laughlin at least has the courage of his convictions, even if those convictions are scarcely thought out."[14]
Delores Taylor received a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcoming Actress. Tom Laughlin won the grand prize for Billy Jack at the 1971 Taormina Film Fest in Italy.
The AllMusic review states "a strange and striking combination of styles that somehow is effective... a listenable disc whose flaws only add to the warmth".[17] A cover of Canadian band The Original Caste, the film's theme song, "One Tin Soldier" was recorded by Jinx Dawson, of the band Coven, with session musicians providing the backing and later a re-recording, renamed as "One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)", credited to the band Coven, became a Top 40 hit in 1971 and again in 1973.
Marketed as an action film, the story focuses on the plight of Native Americans during the civil rights era. It attained a cult following among younger audiences due to its youth-oriented, anti-authority message and the then-novel martial arts fight scenes, which predate the Bruce Lee/kung fumovie trend that followed.[18] The centerpiece of the film features Billy Jack, enraged over the mistreatment of his Native American friends, fighting racist thugs using hapkido techniques.[19]
↑ Kern, Louis J. (1988). "MIAs, Myth, and Macho Magic: Post-Apocalyptic Cinematic Visions of Vietnam". In Searle, William J. (ed.). Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War. Bowling Green State University Popular Press. pp.43, 51, 52. ISBN0-87972-429-3. [p.52] The Billy Jack cycle - Billy Jack (1971), The Trial of Billy Jack (1974), and Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977) - about a half-breed vet who struggles against social evil and political corruption, is a more polished Vetsploitation venture. (...) The Billy Jack character (played by Tom Laughlin) had been introduced in one of the Vetsploitation motorcycle epics, The Born Losers (1967), which Laughlin had also directed.
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