Tank B-Movie Review

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TANK -

Rated PG

Reviewed by Michael Colander on 20 March 2008

The Characters:

Sergeant Major Zack Carey - James Garner! Stereotypical butt-kicking military dad with a heart of gold, and his own personal Sherman Tank. Gets ticked off and decides to break his son out of jail.
LaDonna - Shirley Jones! She's Zack's wife and a handful, at that. She has a violent temper.
Billy - C. Thomas Howell! Zack's sixteen-year-old geeky son who gets framed for drug dealing.
Sarah - The prostitute. Not much else to say about her. She gets beaten for, uh, thinking the Lone Ranger is real...
Ed - Zack's best friend in the military and a black guy who keeps getting called "boy" by the evil Sheriff.
Sheriff Cyrus Buelton - Complete butt-wad, and a dense one, at that! He spends his time misunderstanding the Posse Comitatus Act as being a slam against him and thinking people are actually calling him a "pussy communist."
Deputy Euclid Baker - James Cromwell! He beats up the prostitute because he blames Zack Carey for ruining his pool game by singing (his reasoning is VERY hard to follow, so don't ask me why).

The Plot:

Sergeant Major Zack Carey decides to move his son and wife to a new military base where he hopes to finish out his career with grace and honor. He becomes a bit of a celebrity right off the bat, because he's the only guy in the military who owns a working Sherman tank of his very own. This of course is partially what gets him in trouble.

One night he goes out into the town a couple blocks away from the base, and decides to eat dinner at a seedy-looking café. There he meets Sarah - a prostitute. While he doesn't want to have sex with her due to his being married, he finds no problem with just talking to her. He then decides to sing an old "seaman's song."

What he doesn't know is that only a few feet away is Deputy Baker, who is playing pool (and not very well, I might add). He screws up and loses the game and screams at Zack Carey for distracting him from the game with his singing. Zack apologizes and offers the Deputy a beer or money or both to make up for ruining the pool game. Deputy Baker refuses these "gifts" and instead slugs the prostitute as his revenge on Zack, and then he dares the Sergeant Major to a fight.

Instead, Zack says he will just leave and never come back, just to keep the peace. This doesn't work either. The deputy screams at him and then starts to beat the blazes outta the prostitute. This in turn finally ticks Zack Carey off enough that he knocks the deputy out cold and drops his gun in the nearest fish tank, and then leaves.

The next morning the Sheriff finds out the whole story and decides to get revenge by going over to Sarah's home, asking her if she believes in Wonder Woman and the Lone Ranger, and then beating her with his strap. He supposedly does this to show the whole town that it's not wise to test him, but then he keeps his abuse of Sarah a secret. The Sheriff also makes it obvious that he hates military men of all kinds. After that he then frames Billy on a drug charge and jails him.

He then blackmails Sergeant Major Zack Carey for ten thousand dollars if Carey wants his son out of jail with no trial.

Carey brings the ten thousand dollars to the department and gives Sheriff Buelton his ransom demand so that he can get his son back right away. The Sheriff then changes the deal and reveals that a quickie false trial has already been held and Billy has been found guilty and has been sent to a work farm that is filled with child molesters. In order to keep the boy safe Zack Carey will now have to pay the Sheriff ten thousand each year (you would think a place like this would be investigated).

Carey gets angry, gets in his Sherman tank, and goes into town. Finding out that the Sheriff is away on business he forces the deputy to release all the remaining prisoners and then strip naked while Sarah joins in on the "fun" by handcuffing the deputy to a pole. As this goes on, we get a camera shot reminiscent of the "praying in the nude" scene from the old Punisher movie, and this is NOT a pretty sight. If anything, it's a rather disturbing sight. Oh yes, I nearly forgot: on his way off base the MP's try to block the exit with two jeeps and then stand around "heroically" and order him to stop.

Now let me ask you: If you had a tank, would you stop simply because a bunch of MP's ordered you to do so?

No.

In fact you would run right over their jeeps and keep on going.

Weirdly enough, soldier boy doesn't stop for the MP's, or crush their jeeps and keep on trucking. Instead, he turns and runs over the cyclone fence; in a slightly hilarious moment you can see the tank tread marks in the grass from previous takes. As if that wasn't dumb enough, the cops show they are even stupider than we thought last time by, and I am not kidding herea trying to stop the tank by shooting it with their rifles and pistols.

Yeah, that'll stop him.

The prostitute and the soldier then use the tank to break Billy out of jail, run over the police department, and blow up a car. The trio then head for the state border where they hope to get a fair trial. The good news is that the entire world sides with them. The bad news is that the evil sheriff, who likes to say "pussy communist," is after him with his evil police department and some evil drunk rednecks.

The best part of the film is at the end, when the tank gets stuck in a large mud pit and the Sheriff and his thugs do a tug-of-war with the people who have sided with Billy, his dad, and Sarah the prostitute. Yes, you read that right: a tug-of-war. One side attempts to tug the tank out of the mud while the villains are tugging to keep it in the mud. The sad thing is that they didn't even need to GO into the mud pit. Our heroes arrive at the mud pit and try to figure out their next move. While this is going on we get a wide shot of the mud pit, and a large area that would be perfect to drive through and keep going (and thus avoid the mud pit) is clearly visible.

This is one hilarious goofy movie and it has some great stuff in it that you won't want to miss.

Things I Learned From This Movie:

In the 1980's "Jesus" was the equivalent of the F word.
The best way to show your kid that Wonder Woman and The Lone Ranger don't exist is to strip them naked and then beat them with a leather strap.
Shit rolls downhill.
Cops in the south believe that one can easily take a tank out simply by shooting at it with rifles and pistols.
The Posse Comitatus Act, when translated into Southern English, is actually a gesture for calling someone a "pussy communist."

Stuff To Watch For:

4 mins - "Why would someone want to own a tank?" What kind of stupid question is that?
8 mins - Ragbag?
12 mins - If that's her idea of wild insane sex, I'll pass.
30 mins - Ouch!
106 mins - Someone likes that "praying in the nude" scene from The Punisher too much.
109 mins - Yeah, that'll stop him.
121 mins - Oh goody, bluegrass music.
130 mins - Are we watching the right movie?
139 mins - Go! Go! Go!
End Credits - These are the lamest end credits I have seen yet.

Audio clips in wav format

SOUNDS

Starving actors speak out

	File	Dialog
	tank1.wav	SgtMaj Carey: "What's 'Soldier's Magazine's' interest in interviewing me?" Reporter: "Well, Sergeant Major, you're the only one in the U.S. Army who owns his own, fully operational, Sherman tank for one thing!" SgtMaj Carey: "Are you kidding me? I thought everybody had one of these."
	tank2.wav	Deputy Baker: "Tell you what there ain't no need for. Ain't no need for no Army scumbag to come up here, to tell me what to do in my town, with my whore." SgtMaj Carey: "You know something, deputy? You're right. You're just as right as rain. Your town, your whore."
	tank3.wav	Sheriff Buelton: "But any more lawyer noise and that kid's going to be shot trying to escape. Yessir, I got the power to do just about anything on that farm."
	tank4.wav	Sheriff Buelton tries to explain the situation to the Governor.