Billy Jack
Originally released in 1971 and then pulled for two years during which a legal battle ensued over its distribution since it was considered too “radical” (at which point it became a box office phenomenom), this film at its genre core was an action drama, but with a message so potent that it has managed to touch almost all those who ever saw it, with even the haters admitting that there was something within the film that they couldn’t quite wrap their head around. Written and directed by and starring Tom Laughlin (once a rising Hollywood leading man before he decided to do his own thing and the mainstream film industry turned its back on him) as Billy Jack, an ex-Green Beret Vietnam Vet and Indian half breed, filled with rage at the injustices of the world but aspiring to be like the pacifist kids at a special “Freedom School” run by a former activist (Delores Taylor, Laughlin’s real life wife), all of whom he watches over and protects from the more backwards elements of the town. Starting the film with an amazing Mustang hunting sequence with many aerial shots and the transcendent theme song One Tin Soldier all the way to the ending, which remains one of the most emotionally overpowering ever filmed, Laughlin fills the film with interesting themes related to his own politics, which some might describe as left wing progressive yet still something entirely onto itself and unique to his own perspective on the world. There’s a bit of Indian mysticism on hand, as well as a lot of screen time for the hippie kids and the various “performances” they put on (among them a young Howard Hesseman and a guy who’s a dead ringer for Val Kilmer) which some might find to be annoying and overdone but regardless sets the tone and idea perfectly for what these people were trying to represent with the counterculture and their artistic tendencies. There’s a also a good amount of action and big showdowns with the bad guys, mostly led by character acting icons Bert Freed and Kenneth Tobey as the town rich man and deputy sheriff respectively, but surprisingly it is David Roya as Freed’s spoiled rotten, cocky yet tortured teenage son, written and acted as someone practically being brow beaten by his Dad into behaving in such an evil way that makes the most impression, garnering near equal amounts of sympathy and hate from the viewer (a shame since Roya later sued Laughlin apparently for retroactive salary demands and lost, all while continuing to badmouth him to this day while destroying his own career in the process), with the highlight being the showdown in the ice cream parlor (probably the film’s most iconic scene) where Billy shows up following a particularly nasty piece of racism (“Sorry, we’re all out of cones.”) and kicks some serious ass, only to walk outside and singlehandedly take on a mob of about fifty rednecks, knocking the piss out of all of them except for about five. An amazing fight scene to say the least and one of the greatest in cinematic history. As tensions mount and the violence escalates over issues like the evil deputy’s abused teenage daughter hiding at the school and the ultra wimpy Indian boy she befriends, the town council’s attempts to (unconstitutionally) bar the kids from the school from coming into town, and the spoiled son’s determination to somehow find a way to rape any of the girls from the school (including Billy’s woman), we ultimately see the reasons why political and social tensions remain at an all time high even today in 2014, with basic human decency being the only (and I do mean the only) thing keeping us from tearing into each other with utter savagery. As for Laughlin, very few actors have ever completely succeeded in oozing the utter badass aura that he does, making one know just from watching his mannerisms and how he talks that he is NOT to be trifled with. And indeed, having recently lost him from this world, one can only hope that his spirit and that of this incredible character and what he stood for can be passed down and remembered through the ages, especially by the young people whom the message was intended for…
10/10