Tank

Sergeant Major Zack Carey (James Garner) made the mistake of being chivalrous in Clemmons, GA. He simply couldn't ignore Deputy Euclid (James Cromwell) beating on the local prostitute. But how was he to know that some bruises on a deputy would so deeply offend the sheriff? Well, that it did and Sheriff Buelton (G.D. Spradlin) is not a very forgiving or even reasonable man.

Sheriff Buelton wanted Carey's hide and when he couldn't get it he had to devise another method of payback. So, he went about planting marijuana in Carey's son's locker. In the small county of Clemmons, GA where the sheriff calls all the shots, that equaled a ticket to jail and whatever else Buelton wanted to do to Billy (C. Thomas Howell).

Carey realized he was defeated and was ready to pay the piper but his wife, LaDonna (Shirley Jones) opted for another resolution. Ole Buelton didn't like the wife's resolution so he fast tracked Billy right to a work labor camp where his safety was a complete toss up.

By this time Sergeant Major Carey had had enough and it was time to get tough. Time to break out the Sherman Tank.

This was a cool movie. At times it was serious and at times it was light. It seemed like whenever real shooting was taking place it was a bit light. They didn't want to kill anybody. When it came to Boss Hogg aka Sheriff Buelton getting his just desserts then it was serious. There was nothing light about his heavy-handed, backwards, racist, and redneck approach to the law. He made a perfect antagonist. He was so easy to hate and root against it made Carey's plight that much more appealing. It was hard to know what year all of this was taking place the sheriff was so confident, reckless, and dismissive of the law. He was the law and well beyond arrests and charges. It was like he ran Georgia!

The trouble Carey was dragged into because he had a heart for a hooker didn't even add up. It was like he rekindled the North v. the South. The moral of the story--what the seasoned rapper E-40 once preached:

Don't save a ho'.

The next thing you know your sons is in prison on some false charges and you're trying to drive a tank across state lines.

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.

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.

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.