I don't know what made me think of Billy Jack and look it up on IMDb. Maybe in old age I'm looking back with fondness on the things of my youth that I despised. It's been forty years since I saw "Billy Jack," so be kind if I get a detail or two wrong.
A girl dragged me to see Billy Jack in a second-run theater. It'd been around the block once. (The movie, not the girl, who'd been around the block several times.) I think my female friend sensed that I was a little too conservative and judgmental and this was a movie I *needed* to see. In the end she was disappointed it had no discernible salutary effect on me other than to harden my stance against idiotic peace-and-love schlock.
Billy Jack fights violence by beating up people. Not exactly what Mr. Gandhi and Dr. King had in mind. We cheer for Billy (or Jack) while he lands crushing martial arts blows to (if memory serves) Republicans, rednecks, law enforcement officers, greedy land speculators, the anti-child lobby, and people who like their cars. Mr. Jack loves children, but probably not in an icky way, and is full of woo-woo mysticism which, as I recall, was often in those days linked to the use of pharmaceuticals. The Man, of course, is always trying to keep him down.
One previous review said the movie leans to the left. This movie leans to the left like the sun leans to hot. This movie is so socialist that by comparison it makes Obama's preacher look like Rick Santorum.
If pretentiousness and smug piety count against a movie at all (and they should, even making allowances for a film from the counterculture years), this is one of the worst ever. As I think about it, I'd kind of like to see it again, just for laughs.
To those who love "Billy Jack" and its message of peace, love, and harmony: If this review angers you, please don't beat me up. To misquote the song: Peace on earth/Is all I say.
A girl dragged me to see Billy Jack in a second-run theater. It'd been around the block once. (The movie, not the girl, who'd been around the block several times.) I think my female friend sensed that I was a little too conservative and judgmental and this was a movie I *needed* to see. In the end she was disappointed it had no discernible salutary effect on me other than to harden my stance against idiotic peace-and-love schlock.
Billy Jack fights violence by beating up people. Not exactly what Mr. Gandhi and Dr. King had in mind. We cheer for Billy (or Jack) while he lands crushing martial arts blows to (if memory serves) Republicans, rednecks, law enforcement officers, greedy land speculators, the anti-child lobby, and people who like their cars. Mr. Jack loves children, but probably not in an icky way, and is full of woo-woo mysticism which, as I recall, was often in those days linked to the use of pharmaceuticals. The Man, of course, is always trying to keep him down.
One previous review said the movie leans to the left. This movie leans to the left like the sun leans to hot. This movie is so socialist that by comparison it makes Obama's preacher look like Rick Santorum.
If pretentiousness and smug piety count against a movie at all (and they should, even making allowances for a film from the counterculture years), this is one of the worst ever. As I think about it, I'd kind of like to see it again, just for laughs.
To those who love "Billy Jack" and its message of peace, love, and harmony: If this review angers you, please don't beat me up. To misquote the song: Peace on earth/Is all I say.