The Trial of Billy Jack (1974)

Simply A Masterpiece

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

it's hard to know where to begin with this movie. I Saw Billy Jack in the theater as a teen. I found this sequel on youtube and watched it. I had to pause it regularly because it was so bad. it really has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Unlike many bad movies that are so bad, they are good, this one is so bad it does not even have that quality. bad script, bad acting, bad directing, bad story line. it's to political to even be political. it's like one of those really horribly made Soviet propaganda movies from the 50's and 60's. so over the top. every character is cartoonish in nature. Usually I like past era films with a political statement but, this one rambles on and on and on. the best part of this movie is, it finally ended. worth watching if you are totally bored. it will get you off the couch to clean the bathroom grout. or, inspire you to do your own dental work on a toothache.

The original "Billy Jack" (1971) showed some promise and was so popular that it grossed nearly $33 million on a budget of only $800,000. Even though excessive violence was used to combat violence, folks eagerly awaited the sequel and lined up at theaters in 1974. The result was a major disappointment. "The Trial of Billy Jack" certainly began with hope, with its scenic vistas of Arizona's Monument Valley and the Elmer Bernstein score. But this overlong, three-hour flop takes an early exit and goes nowhere quickly. Virtually without plot, the movie jumps from one social issue to the next: cultural clashes, child abuse, crooked politicians, the establishment, hippies, the military, Vietnam, the police, etc. Jean Robert's sobs in her hospital bed, and begins to tell a long story to a young female reporter. So, almost everything that follows appears in flashback.The trial itself only occupies a short portion of this film. There were good reasons for Billy Jack's killing of Bernard Posner in "Billy Jack": after all the young man was a murderer and rapist. But the defense of Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) seems inept; the lawyer does not ask about the circumstances. On the other side, the prosecution essentially asks Billy Jack about his philosophy of life. Then we get flashbacks about the Vietnamese War and accompanying atrocities. In the end, Billy Jack goes to prison for involuntary manslaughter and serves four years, so that Laughlin is off the screen for perhaps three-quarters of an hour. This screen time allows attention on Jean Roberts (Delores Taylor) and the progress of her Freedom School. Previously the students themselves renovated an old abandoned military academy in the desert. They worked hard and begged, borrowed, and scrounged for funds. They governed themselves by "love" (oh, oh). They learned and practiced about various topics, like meditation, body awareness, exercise, dance, band, music, arts/crafts, yoga athletics, math, and psychology. They discover an effective treatment for abused children (and even their abusers). When Jean hosts a child abuse conference, she reveals that the solution is love and patience. The hippies build a radio station and gain royalties by selling their recordings "door to door." They start a newspaper to expose right- wing corruption. Several long- haired geniuses even invent a lying machine! Yep, they can tell when a politician is lying, even on TV. The kids say that the FBI, CIA, and police are totally corrupt. When these young geniuses began to expose the top bigwigs of the country, the moguls begin to take notice. The masterminds claim that the Nixon White House and oil barons "manipulated" the entire 1973 energy crisis and engineered the Arab-Israeli War! Really? Esteemed journalists the world over missed this one. Actually the Arabs and Israelis detest each other and have been at odds for many decades, up to the present day! Anyway, the students seem to know so much that the barons apply pressure on the school. When they illegally tap the telephones, the kids outsmart them (again). Eventually the school's TV station gets wrecked. Damn Republicans! Given their dialogue, it is utterly impossible to believe that the kids are superlative masterminds, or even have learned very much. For they are as self-righteous and pompous as ever: with them there is no compromise. So when they attempt to work things out by themselves, they descend into chaos, and even scream at poor Jean! Meanwhile ignorant louts from town bully students, punch a girl, and burn the school bus. This becomes an excuse for a vengeful Billy Jack to take off his boots and socks before he lowers the hapkido boom. Oh, oh, someone is gonna get hurt! Billy Jack reprises his role when Blue Elk (Gus Greymountain) gets battered by rednecks for no obvious reason except that he's an Indian. Then he's inexplicably dragged amid a town dance, with the local judge in attendance. Folks could only stare; no one even tries to help. Billy Jack though takes over. Then another Posner (Riley Hill), also a jerk, dies trying to kill the hapkido master. The corrupt police also try to set up and kill Billy Jack, but he escapes. Meanwhile, the Indians continue to be gouged on the reservation and their lands shrink, assisted by their paid-off brothers. They too argue among themselves. Some starving Indians get ten days jail time for deer hunting out of season. A black woman who cannot keep up with furniture payments is dispossessed. A ski rescue (under clear skies!) is used to vilify a prejudiced doctor. There are so many plot points that come and go quickly. Fine editing would have helped immeasurably. Besides its extreme length and inept editing, the movie is weak in its pretentious dialog and political posturing. In addition, the hippies are amateur actors. They are also inferior guitarists and singers (Nice music department, Freedom School!). The pacing is torpid and several scenes take up too much screen time, like Billy Jack's spiritual vision to conquer his demons (while painted in red). Except for Teddy Kennedy (at Chappaquiddick) and the hippie rock thrower near the end, the left-wingers are good and do no wrong. The few good whites are those associated with the school, Sheriff Cole (Sparky Watt), and the founding fathers of Virginia, like Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. The rest are bullies and racists. Republicans are wicked: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford are mentioned by name. In frustration, Jean eventually calls for a revolution on school TV. Did real life husband and wife Laughlin- Taylor really believe this stuff? The last part of the film imitates the 1970 strife at Kent State: National Guard vs. students. After that, Blue Elk says while holding a torch, "If this country must have another Civil War, then let it start here." Ugh!!! Then the surviving kids tell Jean that they are going to start their own schools everywhere. "With what?" one might add! Extremely disappointing!!

Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) spends four years in prison for his killing of a sheriff's deputy. During that time, the Freedom School, a hippie commune led by Billy's lover Jean (Delores Taylor) begins to prosper, releasing newspapers and TV that stick it to the man, caring for underprivileged and abused children, and no doubt doing lots of drugs (oh, I'm sorry - drug use is against the rules there). Billy helps the Indians and the Freedom School stick up to the crooked landowner Posner (Riley Hill), who ultimately calls out the police and National Guard, with tragic (I guess) results."The Trial of Billy Jack" is an atrocious film that has to be seen to be believed. On the other hand, that may be too high of a price. While it maintains some of the camp value of its predecessors, any enjoyment, unintentional or otherwise, is done in by the fact that the movie is THREE FRICKING HOURS LONG!!! The movie's pretentious, overwrought and hilariously un-ironic political and social content isn't the problem here; it's the length, and boy does it drag.The first Billy Jack had a certain purity of form. Clocking in at about two hours, it was a reasonably entertaining film which managed to be watchable, with the camp cheesiness and overwrought hippie world-view only enhancing the experience. The movie could never reconcile its pleas for pacifism with the appeal of Billy Jack's martial arts heroics, but it hardly mattered. The overlong guerrilla theater routines by Howard Hesseman and the interminable music numbers were the biggest flaws, but Laughlin managed to keep himself in check.No such luck here, as Trial of Billy Jack drips with a potent strain of narcissism. Laughlin's film is filled to the brim of self-indulgence, padding the film's running time with self-indulgence and smug posturing. At least a third of the movie is lengthy, droning performances of atrocious excuses for "music", by people with no talent (most egregiously, Laughlin's daughter Teresa). Billy Jack is continually celebrated throughout as a paragon of virtue, albeit a somewhat flawed one, sung about and worshiped by the freedom school kids - yeah, nice humility, Tom. And of course, Laughlin's smug self-assurance that we'll agree with our heroes and their noxious political viewpoint is rather off-putting as well, but he gets around that problem - sort of.The politics are by their nature laughable, accepting and endorsing every bit of radical, leftist conspiracy jargon as concrete fact. But the way Laughlin paints the issues is what makes it truly offensive. He juxtaposes the film's climactic massacre with real life school shootings like Kent State, portraying them as premeditated acts of mass murder by the National Guard. The villains are bigoted, greedy, harrumphing straw-men, not even convincing as caricatures. Laughlin and Co. seem convinced that they're so important that they're being investigated by the FBI, CIA, and the US government at large for their "scorching exposes" (Laughlin would, in real-life, use this excuse for the failure of his later Billy Jack Goes to Washington). The journalist interviewing Jean repeats leftist conspiracy propaganda as known fact. The final massacre is so over-the-top, it's simultaneously appalling and laughable; the idea that someone would actually hold this viewpoint, however, is what's truly appalling here (although, not as laughable as believing that thousands of rounds fired by trained Guardsmen could only result in three deaths in a huge crowd).This is offensive, not because of the politics, but because of the dishonesty; it's easy to paint everyone opposed to you as a brutal, vicious Fascist, and thus (in theory, anyway) renders any possible argument against the film moot. Like, you can't dislike this movie unless you're a paid shill, Man. It's a childish argument, and it says a lot about Laughlin that it's his primary defense against criticism. And we STILL have the problem that Billy Jack is kicking ass is pretty much antithetical to the peace and love message we're supposed to be getting.Okay, the movie has some camp value. The lengthy Indian vision scenes - where Billy Jack confronts his "spirit double" and a cave full of demons - are pretty darn funny, in a trippy sort of way. A lot of the dialogue and acting is pathetically bad (I love the scene where a hippie suggests that the Freedom School "BOMB THE HELL OUT OF THEM!"). But is so pompously self-important throughout - and so LONG - that it isn't even enjoyable. Two hours in, you'll be pining for the original film, with the "epic" karate fight in the lawn, Howard Hesseman's rambling improv comedy, and, yes, Coven's camp classic "One Tin Soldier" - and you'll realize that there's still an hour to go! But overall, this is a film that even the biggest bad movie buff should be leery of approaching.0/10

I saw this many years ago when it first came out. I had previously enjoyed BILLY JACK for what it was, an interesting little action picture with a leftist political conscience. So I thought I knew what to expect with this one. But nothing prepared me for the sheer, mind-boggling bombast of auteur Tom Laughlin's magnum opus. The simplistic political ideas he espouses in this example of wretched excess make Michael Moore and Leni Reifenstahl look like amateurs. You know the old joke about how you have to get the mule's attention by first clobbering him over the head with a two-by-four? Well, Laughlin feels the necessity to pound that poor mule right into the ground with a pile driver until it's in a hole so deep you can see China on the other side. Subtlety, ambiguity, ambivalence, even the possibility of their being two sides to any issue are concepts that have no place in his universe. If you're the type who believes that the world is a place of Black and White, Good and Evil, with zero shading between, then you may be able to stomach this film. But let all others beware.