Ah, The Legend of Billie Jean. Now that is a sweet, nostalgic memory for me, one of those movies that you see when you are a kid and it just stays with you, even though it wasn't the best movie out there. Picture it: Corpus Christi, Texas in midsummer, and in those seasonably warm times, well, tempers flare and a simple incident between the Billie Jean and Binx Davy(Helen Slater and Christian Slater respectively, no relation) and a group of teens led by Hubie Pyatt leads to Binx getting beaten and his scooter wrecked.
In trying to find recompense for the 608 dollars in scooter damage from Hubie's father, storeowner Mr. Pyatt, what Billie Jean finds instead is a bad situation that nearly leads to her rape and an accidental shooting that forces the Davys become outlaws in an instant, despite the best efforts of detective Lt. Ringwald (Peter Coyote), who senses that there is far more to the story than Mr. Pyatt is letting on.
As the gang(which includes Billie Jean's best friend Ophelia and young neighbor Putter, played by Yeardley Smith) stays one step ahead of the law, their story resonates with the young people of Texas, who help them every step of the way and they become legends in their own time, getting credited(or blamed) for various crimes they had nothing to do with. And throughout it all, the only demand that Billie Jean makes is that she just wants Pyatt to pay for the repair and admit his own wrongdoing, because "Fair is Fair" while Ringwald tries to bring about a peaceful resolution to the situation.
Because of the themes and the soundtrack, the movie was expected to do very well at the box office, but when it all came down, The Legend of Billie Jean only managed to make about $3 million in theatres, which meant that it was largely marginalized after that. But over the years it has sort of developed a cult following, and that is why I am still talking about it today. I saw it on video after it first came out, and I saw it recently, and you know what, it still holds up pretty well.
It still hasn't found a place on the DVD shelves as of yet, again because of music licensing, but news that it was recently shown in a high definition format seems to indicate that it may be coming to DVD soon, and if it does, it may just be worth your time to check it out.
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