Billy Jack (1971) (Std Rpkg) (2009)

Actors: Tom Laughlin
Studio: Warner Home Video
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Run Time: 114 minutes
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
DVD Release Date: May 19, 2009
Format: DVD
Genres: Westerns

He’s a warrior, a mystic, a martyr, capturing the heart and soul of a generation. Embodying all these and more, Billy Jack quickly became one of the most unorthodox and magnetic movie heroes of all time. Tom Laughlin charismatically plays the title character, a half-breed Native American and ex-Green Beret returning to live in solitude on an Arizona reservation. He is drawn to the progressive Freedom School – and the idealistic woman (Delores Taylor) who runs it. But when tensions flare between the students and narrow-minded local bigots, Billy Jack becomes the school’s protector. Once again, violence finds him. First released with little fanfare and dismissed by most critics, the film’s gut honesty struck a chord with audiences, who later made it a box-office giant – and a landmark film of its era.

movie review

Amazon.com Editorial Review:
This time-capsule film from 1971 is a perfect example of having one's cake and eating it, too. Written and directed by filmmaker Tom Laughlin--and starring him in the title role--Billy Jack concerns a half-white, half-Indian karate expert who protects a free school built on principles of pacifism by kicking hell out of pesky rednecks. The story actually embraces that tension between Billy Jack's way of doing things and that of the school's founder (Delores Taylor), but their tension doesn't so much lead to an examination of principles as it leads to an excuse for Laughlin to incorporate fight scenes between hippie politics. Crude and brutal, the film is pretty exploitative of a viewer's torn sympathies, and in that way Billy Jack actually anticipates much of the simple-minded, violent fare that followed in the movies of the '70s and '80s. --Tom Keogh