Benutzer:LennBr/Billy Jack

Film
Titel	Billy Jack
Produktionsland	Vereinigte Staaten
Originalsprache	Englisch
Erscheinungsjahr	1971
Länge	114 Minuten
Produktions­unternehmen	National Student Film Corporation
Stab
Regie	Tom Laughlin als T.C. Frank
Drehbuch	Tom Laughlin (als Frank Christina) Delores Taylor (als Theresa Christina)
Produktion	Tom Laughlin als Mary Rose Solti
Musik	Mundell Lowe, Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter
Kamera	Fred J. Koenekamp John M. Stephens
Schnitt	Larry Heath Marion Rothman
Besetzung
Tom Laughlin: Billy Jack Delores Taylor: Jean Roberts David Roya: Bernard Posner Clark Howat: Sheriff Cole Victor Izay: Doctor Julie Webb: Barbara Debbie Schock: Kit Teresa Kelly: Carol Lynn Baker: Sarah Stan Rice: Martin John McClure: Dinosaur Susan Foster: Cindy Susan Sosa: Sunshine Bert Freed: Mr. Stuart Posner Kenneth Tobey: Deputy Mike Howard Hesseman: Howard (credited als Don Sturdy) Cisse Cameron: Miss False Eyelashes (credited als Cissie Colpitts) Han Bong-soo: Double von Tom Laughlin

Billy Jack ist ein Actiondrama-Independentfilm aus dem Jahr 1971, der zweite von vier Filmen, die sich um eine gleichnamige Figur drehen und mit dem Film The Born Losers (1967) begannen, gespielt von Tom Laughlin, der Regie führte und das Drehbuch mitschrieb. Die Dreharbeiten begannen im Herbst 1969 in Prescott, Arizona, aber der Film wurde erst 1971 fertiggestellt. American International Pictures zog sich zurück und stoppte die Dreharbeiten. 20th Century Fox meldete sich und die Dreharbeiten wurden schließlich wieder aufgenommen, doch als sich das Studio weigerte, den Film zu vertreiben, trat Warner Bros. vor.

is a 1971 American action drama independent film, the second of four films centering on a character of the same name which began with the movie The Born Losers (1967), played by Tom Laughlin, who directed and co-wrote the script. Filming began in Prescott, Arizona, in the fall of 1969, but the movie was not completed until 1971. American International Pictures pulled out, halting filming. 20th Century Fox came forward and filming eventually resumed but when that studio refused to distribute the film, Warner Bros. stepped forward.

Still, the film lacked distribution, so Laughlin booked it into theaters himself in 1971. The film grossed $10 million in its initial run, but eventually added close to $50 million in its re-release, with distribution supervised by Laughlin.

| budget = $800,000 | gross = $32.5 million (rentals)

Handlung

Billy Jack, a mixed-race Navajo, is a Green Beret Vietnam War veteran and a hapkido master. He defends the hippie-themed Freedom School (inspired by Prescott College) and its students from townspeople who do not understand or like the counterculture students. The school is organized by its director, Jean Roberts (Delores Taylor).

One of the troubled youths is a girl named Barbara, who became pregnant and was abused by her father. A group of children of various races from the school goes to town for ice cream but is refused service. They are then abused and humiliated by Bernard Posner (David Roya), the son of the county's corrupt political boss Stuart Posner (Bert Freed), and his gang. This prompts a violent outburst by Billy.

Billy undergoes a Navajo initiation in which he is deliberately bitten by a large rattlesnake, intending to become the blood brother to the snake. Meanwhile, Barbara loses her unborn child when the horse she is riding stumbles on a rock, leading to her falling off the horse.

Bernard attempts a sexual assault on a woman in his car, but is stopped by Jean and Billy, who give Bernard a choice: either receive a dislocated elbow or drive his Corvette into the lake. Bernard chooses the latter. Later, Jean is kidnapped and raped by Bernard, who also murders a Native American student.

Billy confronts Bernard, whom he catches in bed with a 13-year-old girl, and sustains a gunshot wound before killing him with a hand strike to the throat. After barricading himself following a climactic shootout with the police and pleading from Jean, Billy Jack surrenders to the authorities in exchange for a decade-long guarantee that the school will be allowed to continue running with Jean as its head.

As Billy is driven away in handcuffs, a large crowd of supporters raises their fists in a show of defiance and support.

Box-office and critical reception

Billy Jack holds a "Fresh" rating of 63% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews, with an average grade of 5.4/10. The website The Grindhouse Database, and the book Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War list this movie as belonging to the vetsploitation subgenre.

Film critic Leonard Maltin at first gave Billy Jack 3.5 stars out of 4, calling it "Uneven in spots but tremendously powerful." Later he downgraded it to 1.5 stars, writing, "Seen today, its politics are highly questionable, and its 'message' of peace looks ridiculous, considering the amount of violence in the film." Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4 and also saw the message of the film as self-contradictory, writing: "I'm also somewhat disturbed by the central theme of the movie. Billy Jack seems to be saying the same thing as Born Losers; that a gun is better than a constitution in the enforcement of justice." Howard Thompson, writing for The New York Times agreed, calling the film "well-aimed but misguided" as he wrote, "For a picture that preaches pacifism, Billy Jack seems fascinated by its violence, of which it is full." He added that "some of the non-professional delivery of lines in the script by Mr. Frank and Teresa Christina is incredibly awful." Variety magazine opined that "the action frequently drags" and at nearly two hours' running length, "The message is rammed down the spectators" throats and is sorely in need of considerable editing to tell a straightforward story." Gene Siskel gave Billy Jack 3.5 stars out of 4, calling it "a film that tries to say too many things in too many ways within an adequate story line, but it has such freshness, original humor and compassion that one is frequently moved to genuine emotion". Kevin Thomas, in the Los Angeles Times, also liked Billy Jack, praising its "searing tension that sustains it through careening unevenness to a smash finish. Crude and sensational yet urgent and pertinent, this provocative Warners release is in its unique, awkward way one of the year's important pictures."

Gary Arnold, writing for The Washington Post panned Billy Jack as "horrendously self-righteous and devious", explaining, "Every social issue is dramatized in terms of absolute, apolitical good and evil. The good guys...are next to angelic, while the bad guys are, according to the needs of the moment, utter buffoons or utter devils. Anyone with the slightest trace of skepticism or sophistication would tend to reject the movie out of hand and with good reason, since this kind of simplification is dramatically and socially deceitful." David Wilson, in The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "If in the end Billy Jack is as much a sell-out as any glossier version of commercialised iconoclasm (Billy Jack is persuaded to accept guarantees which a hundred years of Indian history have repudiated), there is enough innocent sincerity in the film to demonstrate that Tom Laughlin at least has the courage of his convictions, even if those convictions are scarcely thought out."

Auszeichnung

Der Film wird vom American Film Institute in der Liste AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains genannt.

Delores Taylor received a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcoming Actress. Tom Laughlin won the grand prize for Billy Jack at the 1971 Taormina Film Fest in Italy.

Fortsetzungen

Eine direkte Fortsetzung folgte im Jahr 1974 mit „The Trial of Billy Jack“ (1974). 1977 folgte „Billy Jack Goes to Washington“ (1977). Der Film The Return of Billy Jack wurde in den Jahre 1985/1986 gedreht, aber nie veröffentlicht.

Einfluss

Die als Actionfilm vermarktete Geschichte konzentriert sich auf die Notlage der amerikanischen Ureinwohner während der Ära der Bürgerrechtsbewegung. Aufgrund seiner jugendorientierten, autoritätsfeindlichen Botschaft und der damals neuartigen Kampfkunst-Kampfszenen, die vor dem darauffolgenden Trend zu Bruce Lee/Kung-Fu-Filmen entstanden, erlangte der Film bei jüngeren Zuschauern Kultstatus. Im Mittelpunkt des Films steht Billy Jack, wütend über die Misshandlung seiner indianischen Freunde, der mit Hapkido-Techniken gegen rassistische Schläger kämpft.

Im Jahr 2019 wurde bekannt, dass der Autor und Regisseur Quentin Tarantino und der Schauspieler Brad Pitt den Film und Laughlins Auftritt als Einfluss bei der Entwicklung von Pitts Charakter Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood nutzten.

Siehe auch

• Zeit der Vergeltung

Weblinks

• Offizielle Website (billyjack.com)
• LennBr/Billy Jack bei IMDb
• DVD review of the Billy Jack series and production history