| Billy Jack (1971) Cast:Tom Laughlin, Delores Taylor Tom Laughlin stars as Billy Jack a native american warrior who takes on the racist town where violence is erupting from all sides due to the racism of the town and the "hippies" from the school in this daft actioner which is sort of like Death Wish but much more funnier. This movie is line for line diabolically insane, the message found in the film seems to that nothing is solved through violence, yet all the main character does is something violent. The movie has to be one of the most surreal movies ever made, infact the hippy school consists of hippies pretending to rob people and putting themselves in danger, especially since well most of the cops in the town are looking for an excuse to kill them, pretending to rob people isn't a good idea. Not to mention the fact that Tom Laughlin seems to linger on his wife's bondage and rape, this is clearly not a movie that by any imagination you can take seriously. And boy, does Laughlin ever take it seriously, at times the movie is so laughably hypocritical that it just must be celebrated. From some of the worst music ever recorded for film, "One Tin Soldier" is without a doubt one of the worst songs from the 70's a decade that had the worst music ever, yet when compared to some of the songs sung by the actors it easily becomes the most easy to listen to. That's why Billy Jack starts off on the wrong foot, having that song play is like having The Deer Hunter open with "Billy Don't Be Hero" it's just not a good way to start off a movie and amplify your theme. One hilarious scene in particular is when a native american teen is being shot at by a white teen, so the native american teen shoots back, this surprises the white kid as he says "I can't believe he shot at us!" Obviously this is a guy who has a turd floating between his ears. I'm sure at the time Billy Jack was indeed not at all laughable and filled a void for some people at the time but let's face it, this has as much relevence to the issues it tries to bring up as much as the Missing In Action and Rambo movies have to say about Vietnam, this is literly one of the goofiest movies ever made. Infact what is quite astonishing about Billy Jack is how it makes one curious about Tom Laughlin, this is a guy who's website just like the movie, infact even more so is diabolically insane. This is clearly a guy who if you invited to dinner, you would rather shoot yourself in the head before bring up politics. Billy Jack is an entertaining movie sure, it's hilariously dated and in the right frame of mind can seen as a hilarious testament to the 70's but for anyone else looking at as how well it works with what it wants to say, it has to be seen as nothing but a failure. However I'm not all that sad to have seen Billy Jack, for it's great when a movie tries really hard, because when it fails you can still find some entertainment out of it. Such as it is here. D.Tom Laughlin** |