Tough Chicks: Lori Petty – Tank Girl
I have to admit that I am not familiar with the comic book that the 1995 feature film Tank Girl is based on. I read somewhere that the comic is filled with violence, nudity, and all sorts of weird comedy. While the movie was severely lacking in the skin department (they did film a post sex scene with Tank Girl and the kangaroo guy but later cut it), it takes every opportunity to replace those situations with more weird comedy than you can shake a stick at.
Lori Petty may have been birthed solely for the chance to play Tank Girl. She so effortlessly fills the ripped hose, shaved head, and leather boots of the armored princess that one could hardly tell where Petty would go from there. The truth is that Petty’s starring roles drastically diminished after her turn as Tank Girl but don’t let that ruin the memory of the time she made out with a young Naomi Watts.
The story of Tank Girl is far less remarkable than the character herself. She doesn’t exactly abide by anyone’s rules. Especially the rules of the Water & Power folks who only seek to expand their power and control over all of the world’s surviving peoples. Hell, Tank Girl just wants to be Tank Girl. She fits right in with the new empowered woman of 2018 so well that I’m half-expecting a reboot to be released next year starring Lady Gaga.
Petty is pretty relentless as TG. She gets captured by the bad guys, watches her boyfriend and all the others living in their little hippie commune get killed, then spits in the face of the men torturing her before escaping in a big ass tank. She finds companionship in a downtrodden, loner of a girl and a bunch of murderous kangaroo people. They end up partying for a while, which is very much Tank Girl’s style, before ripping down the very pillars of Water & Power’s growing empire. Tank Girl the movie has cool music, is filmed in a unique way, and features a couple of actors in Lori Petty and Malcolm McDowell who fit the bill so much that it’s just downright fun to watch.
