I’m in the minority: I actually have fond memories of One Tin Soldier.
Did you lose your virginity to it? For that’s the only possible way you could have fond memories of it. (This isn’t my opinion- it’s been proven in government studies.)
I saw it in college in the early 1970s. Cheesy but the fight scenes were fun. I wouldn’t watch it again though.
I’m 55 and I fucking love Billy Jack! The hilarious school town meeting, the flour on the innocent adorable native girl’s head, the purple plot developments, the creepy sheriff’s kid with the 'Vette, the absolutely god awful acting, the speechifying, the going berserk, the foot in the face for peace? Tell me, what’s not to love?!
It’s a great movie for gathering friends together for an evening of nostalgic, back-in-the-day high comedy. Come to think of it, someone ought to suggest it to Rifftrax.
Quite likely I’m confusing it with another movie.
I think Argent Towers was making a joke. Tom Laughlin was the director and star (and title character) of Billy Jack but Delores Taylor, who co-wrote and co-produced the movie and played Jean, is clearly the female lead.
Laughlin and Taylor worked together on The Born Losers, Billy Jack, The Trial of Billy Jack, and Billy Jack Goes to Washington, and have been married for fifty-six years.
It’s not that, it’s that I genuinely don’t think the movie has a female lead. Dolores Taylor’s character is not really a lead character. The young girl who gets pregnant and runs away from her father (the sheriff’s deputy) is probably the closest to a female lead, but she’s pretty poorly acted (like most of the film) and also not conventionally attractive.
I’m 47, and Billy Jack is actually the first movie I ever saw in a theater. I was obsessed with it for a little while, but eventually forgot about it.
Then in college my roommate and I were discussing an argument I’d had with my girlfriend, and without preamble or us having ever discussed the movie he said something like “When I see this girl, man…who has such a beautiful spirit… so degraded…” and I think I laughed so hard I hurt myself.
I’m 56, saw the movie when I was in high school, and thought it was rotten even then.
43 and I saw it NUMEROUS times during the late '70s on my dad’s soldered-together HBO unscrambling TV downstairs. I loved the fight scenes (as a young’un), but even then I loathed the parts inbetween. That blond-headed granola hippy-chick with the sanctimonious voice just grates on my nerves. Just leave her staked to the ground, guys, maybe some vultures will come and get rid of the evidence…
I’ve seen it many times, but I was interested in the martial arts scenes, which are better than it deserves. A Hapkido master named Bong Soo Han (probably best known for playing “Dr. Klahn” in Kentucky Fried Movie) is Laughlin’s stunt double and does a lot of the fight scenes; if you freeze frame on the above clips you can see that the guy doing the kicking is several inches shorter and has sideburns.
If you like Billy Jack, by the way, keep your fingers crossed for the next one to one day be released:
A little out of date now, but hey, they got “Duke Nukem Forever” out eventually, right?
I have a feeling that Billy Jack’s Crusade to End the War in Iraq and Restore America to Its Moral Purpose will be released around ten years after the war in Iraq is over.
He’s been filming this since 2004? Great, nothing keeps fresh like “social commentary on politics, religion, and psychology.”
But I seriously don’t understand the hold-up. Billy Jack, you have a camcorder, a $1,000 hat, and a YouTube account: just make the damn movie. It can’t possibly be worse than anything you’ve already made in your career. Does he really think he’s getting a real film distributor?
Checking out his website and updates on the Billy Jack sequel, I think he thinks he’s getting an Oscar.
a) The Trial of Billy Jack
b) “It is one of the longest, slowest, most pretentious and self-congratulatory ego trips ever put on film.” Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times.
Guess which one has withstood the test of time as an insightful observation of the human condition?
This. The “people being booted in the head” thing. Now in HD.
As much fun as it is to mock this movie, I’d still rather watch it than The Postman.
My wife’s parents grew up in Prescott AZ, where Billy Jack was filmed, and she still has some relatives there who we go visit every year or two. I have actually had the honor of spending time in the square where that very scene took place.
It’s always hard to resist the urge to take off my shoes and kick people in the head.
Another great movie, which I have seen at least a dozen times. This might be Costner’s best, in my opinion, although Will Patton really steals the show. Actually, Costner’s best is No Way Out (also featuring Will Patton.) Those two are a damn good team. Postman is one of the most underrated movies ever and I will never tire of defending it when others put it down.
On this we agree, although I liked Open Range.
Saw them all in the 70’s and like them for the most part. Trial of … was too over the top to enjoy, even if you were a pinko hippie type. Just saw part of *Born Losers *the other day. It didn’t age well at all, but then “the Wild One” is similar IMO, didn’t age well either yet is critically acclaimed.
Interestingly, I saw a documentary that claimed the Billy Jack movies were instrumental in opening the doors for independent movie distributors. As in, up unto Billy Jack you either played by the studio rules or you couldn’t get your film shown to a wide audience. I don’t know how true that is, but it fits nicely into the “rebel against authority” motif.