Born Losers
Few movie heroes remain as iconic and yet also so enigmatic than Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack, the half breed asskicker of all things related to bigotry. So strong was the character and his anti-establishment politics that Laughlin wound up being ignored by Hollywood and shut completely out of the film industry altogether, but not before scoring three hit films and a solid fan following for the character. The first chapter was this 1967 release which had Laughlin collaborate with a young female screenwriter named Elizabeth James which saw him direct (under an alias) and the both of them starring in the two lead roles. Laughlin (a semi Hollywood creation early in his career) had always wanted to make a film that gaslighted the prejudice that this country had for Native Americans and developed the Billy Jack character as an ex Green Beret Vietnam vet who is still treated like shit by the pale skinned locals because of his Indian heritage but the original script itself is based upon a real life (and notorious) rape spree by The Hell’s Angels in 1964 Monterey, California, in reality just a more sexualized version of what The Manson Family would commit years later. Since, yes, even The Hell’s Angels have lawyers, the gang in question here is renamed The Born Losers with the caveat being that the town cowers in fear to their strength in numbers, which then brings into play the script’s most fascinating dynamic in having Billy turn out to be both a childhood friend and old rival of the gang’s leader, Danny Carmody (Jeremy Slate in a good performance), resulting in a Billy Jack villain who doesn’t really FEAR Billy so much mostly out of the longtime camaraderie but nonetheless is content in many scenes to just sit back and allow his so called brothers to engage in thuggery and also catch the occasional assbeating from Billy. But now The Losers have decided to exercise a vulgar display of power in the town, kidnapping and / or luring the town’s white, well bred teenage girls to their hideout and then proceeding to rape the shit out of them with one girl said to be suffering from a “mental imbalance” from being hit so hard and so often. All of the upscale townspeople are distressed by their daughters being served up as rapemeat for bikers, but most of them are also too intimidated and weak to do anything except for Billy, who befriends one victim (screenwriter Elizabeth James) who got hers from a feral, animalistic deaf mute biker and then vows to protect her until she can testify, a deal which his old buddy isn’t too agreeable with if only he would just step out without at least 5 of his biker brothers at his side (Slate is shown engaging in random attacks where he regularly assaults the citizenry) but luckily for everyone Billy is not afraid at all since he has access to the mystical connection to the spirit world along with his weapons training and hapkido martial arts skills, but the idiot deputy (played by the exact same actor named Jack Starrett who years later would torture John Rambo in 1982’s First Blood before he volunteered for Rambo’s target practice) still locks him up for protecting people from the bikers by holding them at gunpoint (prejudice). The film benefits from a surprisingly perceptive, mature screenplay, with ounces of character development that successfully portrays Slate’s Danny Carmody as being just as much of a fascinating character as Billy himself, shown as having a wife and son and serious issues with his father but also engaging in some homosexual acts with his fellow bikers even though the inevitable final showdown underscores the irony that he and Billy in many ways both share the same enemies (The Establishment) but since Danny and his crew are degenerated rapists on a legitimately vicious rampage, Billy gets to be the one who steps up and puts these people in their place, and does he! From the token big guy (Jeff Cooper) who gets knocked into next week and almost set on fire by Billy to the pretty boy second in command (William Wellman Jr.) who comes off as an LSD addicted beatnik with a smart mouth but when grabbed by Billy becomes such a suitable bitch that Billy must decide if whether or not raping HIM would be worth it to legendary B movie tough guy / biker movie legend Robert Tessier taking one in the stomach and being brought to his knees by Billy after talking too much shit. But like many of the great villains, Danny Carmody manages to slip away from Billy’s grasp every time all while using his underlings as human shields. This all leads up to the wild conclusion, a bit convoluted as the bikers scramble to threaten all the girls and bully their dads into not pressing rape charges while Billy storms the castle not necessarily to take out the whole gang but rather to get Carmody himself cornered (immediate company be damned) so that he can’t hide anymore the same way he would run and hide when Billy used to slap him around all the time as kids. Despite the flaws, the ending is pretty damn awesome and well done and as for the female screenwriter’s co starring performance as the savant whom Billy must protect, she writes herself to be both the sassiest and also the most feisty female in movie history, both a good thing and a bad thing in terms of the subject matter here along with having unfortunate daddy issues that (along with being an exhibitionist) marks her down as just not giving a shit about either herself or her safety, including a scene where she negotiates to willingly give herself up to the bikers in exchange for them releasing hostages, only to turn around and practically dare them to rape her instead, a bad move no matter the circumstance. Laughlin’s seeming aloofness as Mr. Jack allows him to maintain that detached quality which defines a character such as this while still having the requisite presence and movie star charisma to make him instantly watchable anytime that he’s onscreen along with having the single best antagonist of the entire franchise (no mean feat) to match up with and best of all, a minimum of the politics that eventually dragged the whole series down and resulted in Laughlin’s quasi blacklisting from the business, but the character and the franchise lives on for generations to come whether or not you respectfully agree or disagree with its star’s political views or not…
8/10