Turk 182

Turk 182 Movie Poster

Before "tagging" was really cool, there was Turk 182! (1985).  The movie starred Timothy Hutton as Jimmy Lynch, Robert Urich as Terry Lynch, Peter Boyle as Detective Ryan, and Kim Cattrall as Danny Boudreau.  The movie was hated by critics and was a dud at the box office.  Interestingly, Turk 182! Was one of the first films to receive a PG-13 rating.

In this movie, Hutton plays the role of Jimmy Lynch, whose lives with fireman brother, Terry Lynch (Urich), whose fireman number is 182.  The two have spent most of their lives caring for each other, after their parents died, and are very close.  While off duty, Terry is seriously injured in an off-duty fire rescue after the on-duty firefighters accidentally shoot him out of a window with the fire hose.  After the city denies his brother benefits, and the Mayor Tyler washes his hands of the problem because of his own troubles.  Jimmy breaks in and vandalizes the Mayor’s office, and the police focus their attention on the drunk and despondent Terry Lynch who they believe is responsible.

Jimmy decides to get back at the mayor by scribbling graffiti everywhere, which puts a king in the Mayor’s anti-graffiti campaign.  Jimmy begins writing "Tyler Knew, Turk 182!" all over the place, and finds other way to get the message out, including hacking into a scoreboard at Giants Stadium to get his message out.  Jimmy begins to get the attention of the general public, but it is not enough to get his brother a pension from the city.  In a last ditch effort to draw attention to his brother’s plight, Jimmy changes the letters on a bridge christening event to read “Turk 182!”, and on live TV, every goes crazy.  In the end, it appears that Jimmy’s graffiti campaign will pay off, as the mayor appears to concede in defeat.