Tank

The premise of the story may be farcical and perhaps even silly. And the soundtrack does a good job of trying to keep it light, but this is a harsh movie portraying extreme local government corruption, violent child abuse, racial violence, abuse of power, vigilantism, unlawful imprisonment, threats of imposed sodomy while incarcerated, prostitution...need I go on? This movie should have been rated R but managed to squeeze into a PG rating just before the PG-13 rating was created. It's worth seeing, but not if you're looking for a comedy.

I enjoyed this movie, by the looks of the score I am a bit alone in my opinion of this film. The story has a guy in the army who somehow owns his own personal tank moving onto a new army base. I am rather sure they probably explained how he had his own tank, but it has been awhile since I last saw this film so I do not remember parts of it all that well. What I do know is that one evening James Garner's character (the one with the tank) goes into town and ends up taking out a deputy. This infuriates the sheriff of the town and he wants revenge. He seems to have some problem with the military folk and it is against the law to punch a cop even one who deserves it. Of course, this part of the film makes little sense to me, usually a southern town like the one depicted here would embrace the military and be patriotic even bashing the lawman for bruising the army guys hand or something. Same strange hatred of the military appeared in the film "First Blood". Most of these bases also offer jobs to the locals and provide income as a lot of military guys have a lot of money to spend on frivolous things. That aside the sheriff gets his hands on the army guy's son and now the army guy is ticked, so ticked he uses his tank to break his son out of a boot camp style prison. A cross state chase soon occurs as they know they will not get a fair trail where they are so they head to either the next county or state, do not recall which. Some good humor to follow along with some good action. The movie gets a bit to heavy handed near the end and the thing with the dad getting his ribs broke was a bit to much, but all in all I found this movie quite enjoyable.

Not only does Tank offer varied assortments in the ways of wit, action, and humor, I believe that it also accurate portrays the periodic levels of corruption that previously and continue to plague the various small town, white-bred trailer trash communities across the nation, moreover a mild example of which I can personally relate to.

Two years ago, a similar rural community with it's own breed of laws and regulations attempted to suspend my driving privileges upon ticketing a driver for speeding that had confiscated a driver's license that I had previously reported as stolen. My attempts to explain myself only proved a fruitless endeavor, as the community encouraged me to pay up and get over it. Only after I hired an attorney and threatened a lawsuit, did the grit munching scum-suckers in question withdraw their insistence.

Within this film, a corrupt southern bred police department attempts to enslave an Army Major's son after a deputy is justifiable beaten up in retaliation to assaulting a falsely branded "prostitute". As a portion of cover, the malevolent Sheriff runs a broadly defined farm that actually qualifies as a labor camp from which to subject luckless youths to intensive brutality. After failed attempts to appease the Sheriff's fury, James Garner elects to take matters into his own hands, commandeering a personally owned Sherman Tank in which to spring his son, and demolish a few of the corrupt police department's facilities along the way.

Perhaps another reason I enjoyed this movie is the presence of the highly versatile score by the incomparable Lalo Schifrin, who employs every compositional style in the book from Jazz to traditional military marches and a highly catchy disco tune. Unfortunately, the latter becomes a subject of unwarranted contempt from the Sergeant major's redneck upbringing, as he encourages local bars to refit their repertroire to stay any unwanted coersions to "dance the funky monkey".

Overall, the film offers a highly sympathetic premise, that eerily enough seems completely plausible in today's terms, given the prevalence of small towns, isolated from the civilized world and thus prone to erect their own dictatorial policies, no matter how severe.

This is an old fashion good vs. evil movie that is fun. Movies don't always have to have some heavy deep plot. Sometimes it's great to watch a movie that is fun that you can cheer, and this is one of them. It's now over 20 years old, but it still holds up as a fun movies to watch and enjoy.

A big surprise will be to many is to see James Cormwell playing a simple deputy sheriff, and what Command Sergeant Major Carey does to him.

James Gardner, as always, carries the film very well. He is a very believable CSM, and Shirley Jones has a military wife down pat. A young C. Thomas Howell does a good job too as a military son. G.D. Spradlin plays the very mean Sheriff that is very easy to hate. And Jenilee Harrison did this movie at the same time she began a two year run on Dallas, and she looks great in this movie. The whole cast together works great for this movie, and it's great for the whole family.

If you can ignore the dopey ending, the movie has some very nice surprises best of which is the incredible performance of GD Spradlin as the sheriff. This may be a lightweight movie but he does not throw away his role. He's genuinely scary and believable as the tyrannical sheriff. Jenilee Harrison is also at her most sexy in 1984. She was a mouthwatering beauty back then! The film rolls along pretty blandly but the scenes with C. Thomas Howell getting framed are pretty well done and plausible. If you can get over the guy owning his own Sherman tank, the decision to use it makes at least some sense by that point in the movie.