'The Tank II' Wows Crowd at Wyandotte Film Premiere

took their avid fans back to jail with their new film, The Tank II, which premiered to a cheering, sold-out crowd on Saturday at the .

Writer and producer Scott Galeski also showed fans new and improved technical expertise and production values with the new half-hour short, a sequel to his which premiered in early 2010. He plans a third and final film for the twisty, jail-based story, and then would like to “get someone to pick it up as a series,” he said.

The Tank II held to the message that is in all of his serious films. He encourages viewers, through entertaining, sometimes gritty and always unusual stories, to go beyond first impressions, to explore their perceptions and look deeper into situations and especially into the hearts of humans. And he uses his life as a to add hardcore realism to those stories.

If the cynical, tough cops portrayed in his films can see beyond the surface of the men they’ve locked up, surely we can make the effort to do the same with the people in our own lives, Scott tells us subtly through his films. He moves us all to be detectives, in a sense.

The Tank II expands beautifully on his message and delivers entertainment even better than the Galeski Brothers’ (Daniel Galeski Jr. composes the original scores in the films) , which were no small achievements in themselves. The brothers and their crew with Ring of Fire Entertainment have learned a thing or two since they set out on their exciting filmmaking adventure, and it shows in The Tank II.

Ring of Fire Entertainment is a Michigan venture, through and through, and more than that, it’s a proudly Downriver venture. The movies—all of them—are filmed Downriver by and with Downriver people.

Michigan film buffs apparently approve wholeheartedly. The Tank earned seven awards in the “Michigan film festival circuit,” Scott said, and Dan’s soundtrack work has earned six awards.

The actors—nearly all of whom are complete amateurs—and crew talked briefly about their experiences after the screening, and over and over they praised Scott and his work and thanked him for letting them be a part of it.

Ring of Fire actor and film editor David Espie summed it up nicely.

“I had a blast working with everyone,” he said.

The audience, too, had a blast seeing The Tank II

Natalie Rankine, director of Wyandotte's Downtown Development Authority, was in the crowd and said she was floored by the positive response to the Wyandotte shindig.

"This area is grossly underserved when it comes to the arts and I think it’s even appropriate to say that we’re starving for more stuff like this," she said. "Scott’s premiere was sold out weeks in advance. I ... was very excited to be able to view an independent film–made by someone from Wyandotte–in my own hometown. A few years ago, something like this would have been unheard of. 

"We would have had to drive to Detroit, Royal Oak, Birmingham or even further.  It was so great to be able to eat downtown and walk just a few blocks for a quality movie premiere. It made me happy to see the hundreds of people pouring out into the streets of our downtown after the show. This is exactly the kind of thing we need more of and the beginning of great things to come for the arts center and for Wyandotte."

Two comedic shorts from , directed by Dearborn filmmakers Mike Eshaq and Mike McGettigan, also aired at the Saturday premiere to huge crowd approval. Local movie making is definitely a scene people come out to watch.