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Billy Jack

Play trailer Poster for Billy Jack PG 1971 1h 52m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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65% Tomatometer 17 Reviews 63% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
A part-Indian Vietnam veteran (Tom Laughlin) kicks around bigots who pick on his girlfriend's (Delores Taylor) so-called freedom school.
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Billy Jack

Critics Reviews

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Stuart Byron Village Voice 01/18/2013
Billy Jack is the nicest surprise of the year, and my own feeling is that it ranks among the top half-dozen American films so far in 1971. Go to Full Review
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 10/23/2004
2.5/4
The movie has as many causes in it as a year's run of the New Republic. There's not a single contemporary issue, from ecology to gun control, that's not covered. Go to Full Review
James Kendrick Q Network Film Desk Apr 1
3/4
one of the distinctive aspects of Billy Jack is that it openly addresses its hero’s violent tendencies, portraying them as a war zone between idealism and the all-too-human desire for vengeance and justice, whatever that might look like Go to Full Review
John Mahoney Los Angeles Free Press 01/09/2020
The film works in spite of itself, in primitive fashion and because its locale, its odd mixture of pros and real local nonprofessional talents Go to Full Review
Sean Axmaker Seanax.com 09/02/2009
... when peaceful protest is met with guns and brutality, Billy kicks ass as a one-man-army of poetic justice. Go to Full Review
Steve Crum Video-Reviewmaster.com 06/07/2007
1/5
Lame, self indulgent when released in 1971, but even more so now. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Vicki Mar 31 Just simply an incredible movie See more Joshua M Feb 19 One of my favorite movies. There are parts that are archaic and really show it's age but personally I like how it's a bit rough around the edges. It was an indi film after all. The age old battle of good and evil, comedy, hippies, music, Kung Fu, horses. What's not to love. See more Michael S 12/06/2023 Billy Jack is one of those feel good movies with plenty of action. A creation of director Tom Laughlin, it's become a cult classic. See more 03/04/2022 I've watched some stinkers in my day (among them "Flesh-Eating Mothers" and "Chopper Chicks in ZombieTown") and enjoyed a good laugh. This putrefaction wasn't even laughable. I sort of wish I had watched it back in the late '70s when all my high-school friends were raving about it but alas...I thought maybe it would still be good even today. What was I smoking? It's a bit easier to understand this after reading so many reviews…and realizing that Tom Laughable, er.... Laughlin did everything himself. It would be a crying shame to think that there were an actual GROUP of people who thought this merited ever being produced. Save yourself a couple hours and don't bother with this smelly thing. See more 01/04/2022 Disillusioned half-Indian Green Beret Vietnam veteran Billy Jack comes back home to Arizona and what does he find? Several people illegally hunting on Indian land. And to make matters worse, one of them is the local sheriff, so the law no longer applies, and Billy decides that he must take it into his own hands. Not that the sheriff really matters-the real boss of the town is the local millionaire and his spoiled bully son. But there's more. There's a set of hippies near the town who have set up a Freedom School on the same Indian land (with permission), and occasionally they go into town to do street theater and other antics. The locals dislike them and the local rednecks harass them, and as pacifists they cannot fight back on principle. So Billy Jack comes as the great cowboy hero, punching out the local rednecks whenever they cause the hippies trouble. Things get worse when one redneck rapes one of the hippies. She tries to hide it from Billy Jack, knowing what he will do, but he finds out anyway, and despite the hippies' insistence, he shoots the rapist dead, and holes up in a church, ready to die fighting. But a lawman with better integrity comes up and Billy Jack surrenders to the law, the hippies raising their fists in a power salute as he is taken away. I was a tyke when this film was made, so I don't remember the era, but those who have do, and they laughed at the suspiciously clean hippies and the idea they were just harmless goofs who were unjustly bullied. Real-life hippies were neither clean nor harmless, and the dislike for them not so unjustified. "Billy Jack" is a period piece, but doesn't show the era as it really was. See more 08/15/2021 Kenneth Tobey is The Number One! See more Read all reviews
Billy Jack

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Movie Info

Synopsis A part-Indian Vietnam veteran (Tom Laughlin) kicks around bigots who pick on his girlfriend's (Delores Taylor) so-called freedom school.
Director
Tom Laughlin
Producer
Tom Laughlin
Screenwriter
Tom Laughlin, Delores Taylor
Distributor
Warner Bros. Pictures
Production Co
Warner Brothers/Seven Arts
Rating
PG
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
May 1, 1971, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jul 25, 2017
Runtime
1h 52m
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