Tank

Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, Tank follows James Garner’s Zack Carey as his son (C. Thomas Howell’s Billy) is arrested on bogus charges by an evil sheriff (G.D. Spradlin’s Cyrus) and his sniveling lackey (James Cromwell’s Euclid) and thrown into a hard-labor prison camp – with the narrative eventually detailing Zack’s efforts at shuttling his boy to safety in the title conveyance. It’s an oddball premise that’s employed to sporadically entertaining yet mostly underwhelming effect by Chomsky, as the filmmaker, armed with Dan Gordon’s screenplay, delivers an erratically-paced endeavor that fares best in its low-key, thoroughly agreeable opening stretch – with the watchable vibe undoubtedly heightened (and then some) by Garner’s predictably charismatic efforts as the sympathetic protagonist. (There is, for example, a terrific scene wherein Zack threatens a soldier who’s been abusing his wife and child.) There’s little doubt, then, that Tank begins its slow-but-steady descent into mediocrity once Zack embarks on his aforementioned mission, as the picture’s second half suffers from a fairly one-note sensibility that eventually (and distressingly) leads into a padded-out, uninvolving third-act climax – which does, in the end, cement the movie’s place as an almost passable misfire that essentially just wears out its welcome. (This is despite very entertaining work by G.D. Spradlin and James Cromwell as the film’s smarmy villains.)

** out of ****