Tank (film)

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Tank
Tank theatrical poster
Directed by	Marvin J. Chomsky
Produced by	Irwin Yablans
Written by	Dan Gordon
Starring	James Garner Shirley Jones C. Thomas Howell Jenilee Harrison G.D. Spradlin James Cromwell Dorian Harewood Mark Herrier
Music by	Lalo Schifrin
Cinematography	Donald H. Birnkrant
Editing by	Donald R. Rode
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	March 16, 1984 (USA)
Running time	110 min.
Language	English
Budget	Unknown
Gross profits	Unknown
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

For other uses, see Tank (disambiguation).

Tank is a 1984 comedy, drama, and action movie starring James Garner, Shirley Jones, and C. Thomas Howell. The film was written by Dan Gordon and directed by Marvin J. Chomsky.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Command Sergeant Major Zack Carey (played by Garner) is about to retire from the military after taking his last post, in rural Georgia (the base is loosely based on Fort Benning and is actually filmed there). Despite being offered the position of Sergeant Major of the Army, he insists he just wishes to finish his tour and retire in peace to spend time with his family. Several years earlier, his other son had been killed in an accident, and his relationship with his only surviving son, Billy (played by Howell) is strained. He is quickly shown to be a tough but fair Sergeant, who quickly earns the respect and admiration of his troops.

Zack owns a vintage Sherman tank from World War II that he has restored, and he uses it for parades and public relations. While visiting an off-base bar, he sees a deputy sheriff beat a hooker in a local bar and defends her. Unfortunately, this girl had been forced into prostitution by the corrupt sheriff. The Sheriff tries to arrest Sgt. Major Carey, but finds his jurisdiction won't let him touch him while he's on the base, which is Federal territority. To get revenge on Carey, the Sheriff frames his son for drug possession, by planting marijuana in his gym locker at school.

The Sheriff offers to drop the charges, if Sgt. Major Carey would give the Sheriff a hefty bribe, approximately equal to his retirement savings. However, Mrs. Carey (played by Jones) refuses to take part in "good old boy" justice and calls a lawyer. Immediately Billy is put on trial, the lawyer is thrown into jail himself on trumped up contempt of court charges, and Billy is promptly found guilty and sentenced to several years of hard labor at the county work farm. When Sgt. Major Carey tries to offer the bribe, the Sheriff accepts the money, but refuses to release his son, simply stating that it will prevent him from being shot "accidentally" or while "attempting to escape", or from being raped by other inmates, temporarily.

Sgt. Major Carey decides to take matters into his own hands, and climbs into his vintage tank. Driving off base, he liberates his son from the county work farm (and all the other prisoners), as well as the hooker from earlier. To prevent the police from following him immediately, he destroys the local jail & police station, shoots the local telephone exchange, and destroys the parked police cars with his tank's cannon. Once away from town and the jail, he reveals his plan, to escape to Tennessee, where they can get a fair hearing in a court of law regarding extradition, which will at least be a fair hearing instead of the kangaroo court that Billy received in Georgia.

The matter quickly escalates. The Sheriff demands military intervention from Carey's commanding officer. His former commander points out that Carey had tendered his resignation immediately before beginning his adventure, so he's broken no military law (other than breaking a small section of fence to leave the base);he hasn't stolen the tank, which is legally his, and all his violations are of civilian law. He also happily points out the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting him from providing any military aid to civilian law enforcement`. In a running joke of the movie, the Sheriff does not understand the name of the act, and thinks he's being called a "pussy communist".

Through a long series of chases and evasion through rural Georgia, including being aided by relatives of people he broke out of jail earlier, the tank and its crew quickly become folk heroes throughout the country. Despite the Sheriff insisting they are criminals, the nation rallies behind them as a sort of modern-day Robin Hood, meaning the Sheriff has little public support for his hunt for the tank. However, a showdown brews at the Tennessee state line, where he's managed to block the road with tractor-and-semi-trailer rigs, and he has set up an ambush. Using a vintage bazooka, he manages to disable the tank, within sight of the state line. On the Tennessee side of the line, thousands of people have gathered to welcome the Tank. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carey has had a personal audience with the Governor of Georgia (played by Wallace G. Wilkinson, who later became Governor of Kentucky), managing to get a formal guarantee that they will be given a proper extradition hearing (and informally implied that they will be granted asylum).

Acting quickly, a motorcycle gang steals the materials to build a ramp, and jumps into the muddy field where the tank is trapped, sending them a rope (connected to a tow cable in Tennessee). Once the tow cable is attached, the collected people on the other side of the line begin to pull the tank out of the mud, although the Sheriff orders his posse to open fire on the crowd. As the deputies pull their guns, the Tennessee Highway Patrol pulls their guns on the Sheriff's posse and shouts over the megaphone that if he opens fire, it will be "another Little Big Horn". After the tow cable is affixed to a bulldozer, the tank is pulled into Tennessee and to safety.