Billy Jack

[mariposa]

I can't help thinking that Tom Laughlin wrote the role that Chuck Norris should have had.  Chuck would have been perfect as Billy Jack: he could have carried out the fight scene in the park (the one redeeming quality of this film) flawlessly without resorting to a Korean stunt double.  He's a much better actor than Laughlin (although neither one will be bringing home an Academy Award in the near future).  He's even legitimately part Indian!  So why not make a remake of Billy Jack, with our man Chuck in the lead (and hopefully a less hokey script)???

        well if you were smart you would know that chuck is way to old to lift a leg bill would wipe him out.

[M.G. SMITH]

 I HAVE SEEN THIS MOVIE WAY TO MANY TIMES! A MUST HAVE FOR A COMPLETE 70'S DRIVE-IN COLLECTION. MY BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH THE FLICK [AND THERE ARE SO, SO MANY] IS THE PART WHEN BILLY LEAVES THE GIRL SO SPEICAL TO US THAT WE CALL HER "GODS LITTLE GIFT OF SUNSHINE" [ I'M SURE IT'S JUST "SUNSHINE" TO HER CLOSEST FREINDS]TO WALK ACROSS THE STREET, BARE FOOT, IN ARIZONA, IN THE SUMMER, 116 IN THE SHADE, TO KICK SOME RED STATE BUTT! I THINK THAT ACT IS MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN GET'N BIT OVER AND OVER BY ARE BROTHER THE SNAKE!

[John Dashwood]

Whites were here first though. Just so you all know. Check out:

www.neara.org

http://community.kennewick-man.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Lagoon/1345/Lovelock.html

http://www.white-history.com/hwr6b.htm

Should we not get back to arguing about movies?

[BixDugan]

I loved Billy Jack.
I really loved Born Losers.
That girl in the white bikiki, on her little Vespa, YEESH!

Oh, and social injustice, blah, blah, blah...

[bkgguy]

Interesting that you "learned" BOTH of these things...

Hitting a woman in the face once will cause her to miscarry. 

Learning how to ride a horse while you are pregnant is not advised. 

  ... because the second shows that you muffed the first one.  Barbara didn't miscarry when her father hit her once in the face; she miscarried after she fell off the horse.

Otherwise, pretty good review.

[Jody]

Damn, all of you Billy Jack haters are (Born) losers. I loved the Billy Jack movies back in the day. It was my outlet from my father who insisted from the time I was 8 years old that I was a 'communist' because I got a B in Social Studies.

Those movies represented to me the idea that being anti-war and pro-love were not such bad ideas after all. I remember all too well what it was like to grow up in a home where divergent ideas were considered 'communist', to say the least. I experienced the "belt" in some instances, a thing that is NOT tolerated in today's society.

Going to the theater to see "Billly Jack" movies was my one escape from the harsh realities of home. Granted, the situations presented in the movies may have been over the top, the ideals were not. 

[Metal Misfit]

I used to work at a video store and there was an older co-worker who raved about this movie. It actually rented out quite a lot as well. Just bad, bad, bad...

[Superman]

I loved this movie. First of all, its Hapkido, not judo. Second, he is only part indian. He tries to emmerse himself in the "Indian" culture to make of up for being a "half-breed".  The villians in this movie, are more realistic to what real life is. They honestly think what they're doing is right and that Billy Jack is the one breaking the law. This film is about one man standing up and doing what is right, despite what happens to him. If we had more people like that in this country, oil co's and greedy wall street brokers, couldn't rob us blind. You obviously have never had to stand up and fight for what you believe in. I bet your parents did.(Thats why they like the movie)

[Andrew]

You obviously have never had to stand up and fight for what you believe in.

Because we did not absolutely love this movie or the way it presented and then resolved the problems?  Really?  If someone did not love the movie "Schindler's List" does this mean that they would look the other way while a genocide took place?

You obviously have never had to stand up and fight for what you believe in.

I have been a U.S. Marine since 1991, and have stood to when it was needed.  Try again.

[Jim H]

Just one note on people seeing Billy Jack and seeing him as part-Indian...  That seems to really just be a genre convention of Westerns.  Same thing happens in a lot of older westerns, where they have obviously white actors playing "half-breeds", sometimes even full bloods, and everyone can tell immediately.  Sometimes I think it is commentary about prejudice and assumptions, other times it is just movie short hand, a way of making the storytelling easier when they either couldn't or wouldn't cast an American Indian actor.

I sometimes see much the same thing in Asian film, where they'll call someone a derogatory word they translate as "mixed blood", even though I know the actor is a "full blood", so to speak. 

[Sky Captain]

Billy Jack must be Paul Atredies or something: he keeps on taking off his boots to kick ass all of the time. Most people who know martial arts aren't going to do that; they'll just kick ass! That is what I find so dumb about this movie (among other things in it.)

[Trevor]

I have been a U.S. Marine since 1991, and have stood to when it was needed.  Try again.

Andrew:

The only problem that I have with this movie is that the South African Censor Board chose to ban it in the 1970s and the net result of that banning way back when is that it (and Tom Laughlin's later films) has never been seen here at all.  

[Trevor]

I am now pleased to report that I am the proud owner of a R1 DVD of this film ~ I owe Tom Laughlin and this film a heck of a lot as searching for information on this film brought me here. 

[Raffine]

I am now pleased to report that I am the proud owner of a R1 DVD of this film ~ I owe Tom Laughlin and this film a heck of a lot as searching for information on this film brought me here. 

Congratulations! I remember seeing BILLY JACK at our town's theater with my older brother and sister. We sat through it twice and went back later that week to see it again! Playing 'BILLY JACK' was a popular activity in our neighborhood for a few weeks.

[Trevor]

I am now pleased to report that I am the proud owner of a R1 DVD of this film ~ I owe Tom Laughlin and this film a heck of a lot as searching for information on this film brought me here. 

Congratulations! I remember seeing BILLY JACK at our town's theater with my older brother and sister. We sat through it twice and went back later that week to see it again! Playing 'BILLY JACK' was a popular activity in our neighborhood for a few weeks.

Thanks, Raffine: a friend of mine in Belgium sent me this in return for a copy of the terrifying South African film The Stick and I was able to see Billy Jack for the first time ever. Very good ~ that horse hunt at the start: wow.