The Trial of Billy Jack

After serving his sentence for involuntary manslaughter, "Billy Jack" (Tom Laughlin) is released from prison and returns to the Freedom School on the Navajo Reservation. However, the residents of the nearby town still hold a great deal of animosity toward both him and the students at the school and the illegal harassment continues unabated. It gets so bad that both the students and Billy Jack retaliate in kind and this only aggravates the situation even worse. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a fairly long and dull movie which featured an incoherent plot, bad acting and equally awful music. That said, while I have no doubt there are some who either identify with this particular era in American history or idolize this motion picture, I honestly found it to be quite boring and very difficult to view to the very end. Again, it was long and dull. Because of that I recommend it only to fans of the series and have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Following the events of the previous movie, Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) stands trial and is sentenced by the corrupt system to prison. The kids from the Freedom School decide to fight the system themselves.

The movie makes a big early mistake. After Billy Jack gets sentenced, the movie needs to follow him into prison. Instead, his prison time is skipped over and the movie follows a bunch of no name kids with his wife. His wife is charismatically challenge, not to say that he's some great actor either. After he's released, the movie follows our hero once again. This is part personal vanity project and part sincere hippie idealism. It could be indie camp if only it's not three freakin' hours long. It's so long and so slow. It's obvious that Laughlin is throwing everything into the cooking pot. This is the result of an unencumbered artist who has more confidence than skills.

This is one of the BAD films I really enjoy. It is not painful or boring to watch but instead falls into the hokey and stupid category that make it great party film. Like Plan 9 from Outer Space, this movie tries so hard to say something and comes off as a completely laughable fiasco. The over-the-top completely serious aspects of the movie raise it to this level. The movie The Apple also rises (?) to this level of dreck as well.

Our hero (?) is Billy Jack, a half-breed American Indian who teaches peace through the repeated use of bone-crunching violence! It reminds me of the funny segment from the movie UHF when they advertise the fake movie "Gandhi 2" and feature Gandhi kicking butt and driving a sports car. It's so ridiculous, it's great! Amazingly enough, this was the third Billy Jack film (after The Born Losers and Billy Jack) and the first to bomb at the box office. In fact, the also deadly serious Billy Jack (1971) made zillions at the box office--not because it was a good film (though it wasn't quite as bad as The Trial of Billy Jack) but because it was a perfect film for the times. The hippy-ish aspects of the movies worked in 1971 but by 1974, it was reduced to a cliché.

A moment not to be missed in this movie--the little boy with a mechanical claw for a hand being gunned down by the evil soldiers as the boy tries to rescue his pet bunny! Meant to be poignant, it's just hysterically funny instead!

FYI--This film had the dubious distinction of being selected for inclusion in the book "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time" by Harry Medved. I heartily agree with the choice--but must admit it gets a 2 because it's so darn funny--and it doesn't even intend to be!!

This is the third of the Billy Jack films & possibly the worst. Taking place 5 years after the events of Billy Jack, we have our hero coming out of jail & reentering society to find his friends' school now a major hub of culture & education. No sooner than Billy starts to relax at his new environs, trouble arises when the locals want no part of his school & try to make sure that Billy & his masses go away. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours w/some okay fights & whole lot of speechifying, I kept checking my sanity as I had to sit through at least 2 vision quests, a lot of bad singing & imagery too ludicrous to be believed. Needlessly preachy & probably eschewing the filmmakers' beliefs rather than satisfying the audiences craving for ass kicking, this becomes more endurance test than actual film.

This movie was long,and it was very powerful for its time in both relation to the Native American movement as well as the anti war movement that was common when the film took place and when it first hit the big screen. If you like either of the 2 topics above then you will probably like the movie. All I can say is I am proud to have it and I was proud to watch it.