The Legend of Billie Jean

Directed by Matthew Robbins, The Legend of Billie Jean follows Helen Slater’s title character as she becomes an outlaw martyr after standing up to an abusive bully and his almost malevolent father (Richard Bradford’s Pyatt). Filmmaker Robbins, armed with Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner’s screenplay, delivers an agreeable drama that ultimately fares best in its briskly-paced first act, as the movie kicks off with an eventful opening stretch that contains a number of memorable, entertaining sequences – including Billie Jean’s tense initial encounter with the movie’s villain and an exciting interlude set within a shopping mall. (And it doesn’t hurt, certainly, that Robbins has elicited affable work from Slater and periphery players like Christian Slater, Keith Gordon, and Peter Coyote.) It’s clear, then, that The Legend of Billie Jean‘s hold on the viewer takes a fairly palpable hit as it progresses into a comparatively sedate second half, with the less-than-enthralling vibe eventually giving way to a climax that’s hardly able to pack the satisfying, cathartic punch Robbins has surely intended – which ultimately cements the movie’s place as a watchable yet thoroughly erratic endeavor that does, at least, get plenty of mileage out of its inherently engaging premise and proliferation of ’80s-specific attributes.

**1/2 out of ****