Uma Família em Pé de Guerra

Tank has been an inspiration in my life. Its rich plot is rife with moral dilemmas, all of which end in ethical resolutions. Zack (James Garner) is the epitome of all that is good and right in the universe, and he wins in the end like good should. While I usually watch the film for its moral content, sometimes I find myself fast- forwarding to scene eleven, which features james cromwell naked, chained to a phone pole.

Ten stars. This film has changed my life.

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.

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.

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 didn't see this when it came out, so when it appeared on cable late one night I didn't expect very much. But it exceeded my expectations. It's the story of an honorable man who is pushed too far.

Yes, there are some stretches of the imagination to be made. For example, with all the gunfire, I don't remember anybody getting killed or seriously wounded. The good guys are too good and the bad guys are too bad.

But I enjoyed a few scenes a great deal. For one, the portrayal of the small town, that seems idyllic at first but is rotten to the core. I especially appreciated the scenes between Sgt. Carey and his son, the way that the military was shown pulling together as a family, and the others who help the group trying to get to the state line. These were all people that I wanted to cheer for.