Movie Review: The Legend of Billie Jean

"FAIR IS FAIR!" is something that someday I may get emblazoned onto a tshirt, or tattooed across my breasts, or something that I might just start yelling out in public places while raising my fist into the air in the manner of a fed up and rebellious teenager who is just not going to take it anymore.

This movie is super rare. The only reason I was able to find The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) is that someone stole it from a small town video store and then converted it into cash at a pawn shop. Apparently they had grown tired of their love affair with Billie Jean. There is really only so many times you can hear Helen Slater pronounce "motoscooter" before you want to flip over a table and storm out of the room.

People don't do that enough anymore, so I'm glad I have this video as an excuse. Out of nowhere, someday, she'll be confronting Mr. Pyatt for the six hundred dollars he owes her for the motoscooter and I'll spaz out, flip something over, karate chop the bookshelf and throw a plant across the room and storm out. Watch out.

Billie Jean's brother Binx (played by a young Christian Slater ... pre-Heathers, when he became the psychopath of my heart. These days, I'd just like him a lot better if he'd brush his damn hair in a manner that doesn't make him look like a startled muskrat.) is being bullied by Hubie. Obviously Hubie is expressing his pain with brute strength directed at those younger than him, due mainly to the fact that his name is Hubie. If the Emo movement had been available in the Southern States back in 1985 Hubie could have changed his name to Wandering Despair Pit, sitting on the bleachers during gym class because his heart was too full of pain to play volleyball, or team sports, or comb his hair symmetrically. And then, maybe none of this would have happened. Which may have saved my afternoon.

Anyways, Hubie steals Binx's "motoscooter" and as a result Billie Jean confronts Hubie and demands the $600 it'll take to fix it. At this point Hubie's father Mr. Pyatt comes in and tries to develop a "payment plan" with Billie Jean -- payments from the $600 in exchange for sexual favours. In the resulting fray, Binx accidentally shoots Mr. Pyatt and they're forced to run from the law with a Pre-Simpsons Yeardley Smith.

I love adventure movies of this sort -- when teenagers take the law into their own hands and run away on an adventure of everyday proportions. Yet something takes a wrong turn in Billie Jean, either because you CAN wear too much spandex, even though my ten year old self is vehemently arguing that statement even as I write it, or because watching someone raise their fist in the air and yell "FAIR IS FAIR" is right up there for me with nails on a chalkboard and the musical stylings of "Michael Booble". Just grating in an almost undefinable way.

However, you really should watch it just once, if only to see Christian Slater in drag or to watch a giant papier mache homage to Helen Slater burn. 5 out of 10... because fair is fair.

Labels: Film Geekery