University of Virginia Library

Good Message

The only good elements of
"Billy Jack" are the comedy scenes,
and the message. There is some
uproariously funny stuff going on
here, some of it being
improvisational, and some of it
intent on being serious, but looking
ludicrous, such as the town meeting
at which the Freedom School kids
voice their anxieties about being
forbidden to come into town.

The message of non-violence is
always timely, but after all we have
to sit through before we get to the
real meat of the film, the conflict
of the two protagonists' ideologies,
the performers and the story come
off as "strained seriousness." I
don't doubt that those were real
tears Miss Taylor shed in those final
moments of the film, but a
shoot-out over the right to run a
free-school, the right of a minor to
run away from her father, and the
death of an innocent Indian?