It isn’t too many movies that start out with an ad encouraging you to visit the home/museum of the man whose life the story is based on. But then again, not too many movies are Walking Tall and not too many men are Sheriff Buford Pusser. The original Walking Tall starring Joe Don Baker as the club-wielding Sheriff Pusser, is a 70s action movie classic about an ex-wrestler who moves back to his hometown after giving up his career in the ring. He isn’t home for more than a day or two before he starts wrestling with the local bad guys who have turned the town he was raised in into a den of gambling, bootleg liquor and prostitution. He decides to do something about it by putting on a badge and beating the heck out of the bad guys with a giant stick. There’s a lot of action but, since this is a 70s movie, there’s not exactly a happy ending to it all, which leads us to the other two movies in this set, featuring Bo Svenson in the role of the sheriff. The two sequels pale in comparison to the original – particularly the PG-rated Part II, but the trilogy eventually stands on its own terms.
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