Customer Reviews

The Trial of Billy Jack

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I saw this movie in late 1974 when it first came out. I noted the references to historical incidents such as the Kent State shooting, My Lai Massacre and Watergate among others. I did a lot of research on the claims made by Laughlin's movie and was appalled at the inaccuracies and down right lies.
I sent a long letter to Tom Laughlin's business Billy Jack Enterprises. He never answered me. That was 30 years ago. Now he has a website. I sent him an email version and he didn't answer that either.

In the beginning Jean (Delores Taylor) is being interviewed. She refers to Kent State (the May 4, 1970 shooting of 13 students at that university) and claims Attorney John Mitchell said there was no need to investigate the incident because he knew in advance the Guardsmen couldn't be responsible for the shooting. This is absolutely wrong. Mitchell never made that statement and the FBI was out at the campus the next day investigating.
Jean also said that even after fault was found on the part of he Guard "as usual Washington did nothing about it." Unbelievable, considering that when this movie was being made (in 1974) federal prosecutors indicted four guardsman!

In another part of the film, Billy Jack is referring to My Lai and all the "colonels and generals and White House aides who ordered the whole affair." White House aides? This is preposterous. (But it sounded sexy and intriguing during the Watergate era.) For the record, one lieutenant colonel ordered the offensive into the area and Lt. Calley himself ordered the massacre.

Moving on, Jean says about another situation, "I remember because [President] Ford had just shocked the nation by pardoning Nixon and agreeing to let him destroy the tapes." The second part is another untruth. Ford actually just gave Nixon partial control over access to the tapes, which were put in the custody of the General Services Administration in San Clemente. Nixon was given no authorization to destroy the tapes.
And then there is the issue of the "International Seminar on Child Abuse" which contains more nonsense. The movie makes Jean and the Freedom School look like they are the great enlightened champions of humane treatment of abusers and portrays the world of professional therapists as being in the Dark Ages.
A doctor says: "So in summary, you're saying that to love these people that we find dispicable, that we hate. And I can really hate these people that cut off the fingers of their children and beat their children. And that somehow in the experience of loving them, they're going to change before our eyes and stop beating their children?"
She isn't even sounding like a doctor, she's sounding like a cynical police officer. This is one of the more egregious misrepresentations in the film. In reality, the Freedom School's methods of treatment were the contemporary standards among mental health professionals at that time! (and still are)

In another part, an Indian spiritual guide told Billy that Kit Carson had 400 Navajo men, women and children rounded up and massacred in a cave. This is another fabrication. There is no record of Carson doing such a thing. What the scriptwriters could have mentioned is that some Spaniards committed such an atrocity. They rounded up some Indians in a section of Canyon de Chelley in northwestern Arizona and killed them in a cave in 1804. The cave is called "Massacre Cave" not "Cave of the Dead" (the movie phrase).
Also, the writers could have mentioned a factual outrage by Kit Carson, his "Trail of Tears" death marches of Indians in 1864 to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico.

There is more I could mention. Laughlin, as the main producer, was incredibly irresponsible with the script. No one should take the claims made in this movie seriously.

There are those reviewing here that say this movie was a total flop and a box office bomb? Better get your facts straight, The Trial Of Billy Jack was made for 8 million dollars, grossed 89 Million and was so popular, it was one of the first movies to ever play at 2 theatres at the same time (along with the Godfather 2). In 2005 dollars, this would be 300 million (equal). Flop indeed. This movie was one of the most successful independent films of all time (along with Billy Jack). Some may not like the politics in the movie, but this is a beautiful movie (daring, outspoken), Billy Jack was an outsider, a martial arts hero fighting the system. This is an ambitious movie about one finding their inner self, conquering demons, finding your own center, about war, peace, freedom and speaking your own mind. A classic!!!

I remember seeing this film eagerly after having seen the movie "Billy Jack" a year before....at that time I was thirteen and found the movie
entertaining at times, but disappointing, just too "heavy" on politics and paranoia. At that time, all I wanted was more action, more of "Billy", and the martial arts...If I didn't like the character, "Billy Jack" so much...I'd have probably not given the film much thought.
Over 30 years later I still like the character, and now have a more sentimental attachment to the films.
I don't think I ever considered the "historic accuracy"...I never took the movies as seriously as people seem to do today. To me, I was watching another Billy Jack movie. I liked the series of Billy Jack films in all their schlockiness and don't care much about "historic accuracy" or
over analyzing....There are just some films out there you can't take seriously, I know Tom Laughlin did then and does, but I don't care.
If you saw the films as a youth as I did, and liked them, this film is for you, otherwise leave it alone.

One of my all-time favorite bad films! I first learned about it through Harry Medved's "50 worst movies of all time" book, and man, I was not dissapointed. You simply must see this incredible, camp classic. Who could possibly resist dialogue like: "You mean like when a kid's tripping out..or on a real bummer?" It's all here: the sobbing,earnest hippies babbling bromides--Delores welling up with tears--bad,bad,baaaaad "establishment" people kicking puppies--Delores welling up with tears--A Native-American named "Blue Elk"- Delores welling up with tears--and lots and lots of badly staged violence to insure a decent box-office return from the peace-loving teens. I say teens because no grown adult could possibly take this seriously...er..well...God, I hope not. Anyone who's ever read any of the humorous,egomaniacal ramblings of Tom Laughlin in interviews will have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this film, sanctimony on steroids. So, pull up a chair, kick off your Bierkenstocks, dig into that wheat germ and have a ball.

*A word of caution: If you know anyone whose brain cells were permanently damaged by that really,potent windowpane acid in 69', and thinks Neil Young lyrics are deep, they may be in danger of taking this movie seriously. Be a friend and take their keys before they drive to the video store. The life you save may live to cure cancer some day.

You of course have to watch the first Billy Jack movie to really understand this one. In the first movie, Billy Jack stands up for the downtrodden free-spirited kids in a quiet western town - and gets into a fight that results in a few deaths. He wants to just make a stand and die, but Miss Jean Roberts, his girlfriend convinces him to turn himself in. That's where the story ends.

These movies were made during the times of rioting and political unrest, and it's important to keep that context in mind. Kent State is explicitly mentioned several times in the opening scenes, with Jean lamenting, "students are slaughtered by trigger-happy police types and nothing is ever done about it."

The movie is in essence a long flashback sequence. It starts where movie #1 ended, with Billy Jack being tried. Roberts is accused of lying about her rape. Billy explains how the US government killed innocent women and children in Vietnam - soldiers were told to "waste them". Billy refused to participate in that dastardly killing. My Lai is of course brought up here. At the end of the trial, Billy was tossed into jail, while the students work on growing the school.

We head into the school's world of biofeedback, meditation, yoga football, belly dancing and singing. The self-governing students work on child abuse and orphanages, and move on to exposing government corruption and consumer issues. They laugh about how corrupted Nixon was. Soon they have a TV station and broadcast news about abuses in the area. In retaliation, the students' phones are bugged and the FBI begins investigating the school.

Jean talks about loving child abusers instead of punishing them - that if child abuse organizations "love" bad parents, they will all start being nice to their kids.

Skip to scenes of blatant police brutality and also police feeling up women during searches. Typical quote - "Police - they're so damned corrupt." Oddly, for a movie which claims to champion the rights of women, there is a *lot* of gratuitous breast jiggling shots in this film.

I won't give away the ending, but I think you see the pattern here. This movie is *very* black and white. The kids are always good, noble, kind, and super-wise, super-intelligent (and sexy). The police, government and businessmen are always evil, corrupted and power-hungry (and ugly). Many of the statistics they quote to back their statements up are completely wrong. It's one thing to make a point, but it's quite another to lie in order to make your points. My boyfriend and I laughed out loud several times because the movie tipped so heavily into its over-the-top dialogue.

That being said, I can certainly understand how parts of this movie might appeal to viewers who had never heard of some of these concepts before. It's like people watching the Matrix and being wowed at the philosophies explained there, because they'd never learned them in high school. The Trial of Billy Jack covers many important basic ideas. The idea that people of honor should stand up for what's right even if it's difficult. The idea that you should focus, every day, on what is really important - not on blown-up but fleeting emergencies. The idea that even if people are violent or angry with you, that you should have the self-possession and maturity to stay calm and peaceful yourself in response. The idea that you should seek to find balance in your life.

These are certainly all very important philosophies, but there are many other movies which make these points without having to resort to exaggeration, untruths and stereotypes. I really like the message - but I don't like being led by the nose with wild inaccuracies to try to drive the message home. In many ways it makes the message far less palatable. In one scene you watch an entire roomful of "regular people" stand around while they torture a fellow human being. This isn't storytelling ... it's preaching, and I would hope that most audiences were able to handle issues in a more mature, realistic manner.

Long. Slow. Preachy. Slow. Pretentious. Slow. Boring. Slow. Badly Acted. Slow. Badly Written. Slow. Badly Directed. Slow. Badly Edited. Slow. Trite. Slow. Did I mention "Slow"?

I recently acquired this DVD and watched the film for the first time since its release in 1974. As I watched it, I couldn't help imagining what Tom Servo and Crow might have to say if "Mystery Science Theater 3000" skewered it. Obviously, the film has numerous flaws, not the least of which is its interminable length; cutting it down to two hours might not have made it a good movie, but it would have made it much easier to sit through. As the voice-over commentary by Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor makes clear, they had a fixation with 1960s and 1970s campus riots, especially those resulting in student deaths, which fixation caused them to conclude, Oliver-Stonishly, that every single one of these incidents was a political-campaign ploy calculated to demonstrate law and order to the electorate. Needless to say, this perspective makes the film painfully didactic and even manipulative. Finally, The Trial of Billy Jack is much more implausible than the original Billy Jack movie, which creates major problems when it comes to the willing suspension of disbelief.

I will say this, however--the film has some great aerial shots of Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly.

If you are a Billy Jack fan, buy this film!!!!! Takes off right where Billy Jack left off. The people writing negative reviews just don't get this film. This film does have a deeper philosphy and if you are uncomfortable with that don't buy this film. It is an amazing work, and a strange piece of history that this "indie film" ever reached mass market appeal. It is probably the first film that ever introduced the Native American Vision Quest and, in general, is sympathetic to traditional Native American beliefs. Is it dated? Yes! Stand up to Year 2000 movie production techniques? No! But it does offer challenges for those questioning what it means to live as a human being and for that I give it 5 stars. The film has a strong philosophy that veiwers will either tune into or reject.

As Billy Jack was good, the Trial of Billy Jack was bad. It was a disgrace to the martial arts, a disgrace to the memory of Billy Jack, a disgrace to anyone involved in its production, a disgrace period.

And those are its better parts!!!!

BILLY JACK closed with Billy being arrested for manslaughter. This film opens with an extremely long sequence featuring the director of the school Billy was protecting in the last installment, recounting a long list of grievances to a reporter. In this sequence, virtually every hippie stereotype and left wing cause is aired. Intermingled with this retrospective diatribe are flashbacks of Billy Jack's legal trial and prison sentence.

The "trial" referred to in the title does not seem to be the legal one mentioned above. After being released from prison, Billy undergoes a personal trial, replete with Indian mysticism. He is seeking to become a less violent person. This is the backdrop for the real point of the film.

All events lead up to staging a massacre at the school similar in nature to the historic one at Kent State University. The movie is virtually a tribute to those who lost their lives. Little else is accomplished in terms of story or drama.

The movie makes some valid and even good points about the politics of the day and indicts justs about everything associated with "The Establishment". It also back a few losing points of view. Whether these points of view are agreed with or not, however, the film could have been much stronger and made its point better.

This is a very long film. That made it proportionally more difficult to sit through. It is propaganda of its time. It has germs of truth within but those germs are lost with the sledgehammer method of delivering the message.