Uptight

In Cleveland, Ohio, protesters riot in the streets as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. shocks the city. Johnny Wells, a charismatic black revolutionary, leads a group of men who vow to prepare for violent conflict. The unrest sets the stage for their mission to steal guns from a warehouse.

Johnny Wells leads the group on a mission to steal guns from a warehouse to ready themselves for violent conflict. The robbery is intended to arm the revolutionaries as tensions rise after King's death. The crew advances the plan despite the risks involved and the absence of one member.

That night, Tank is found at home, drunk and unemployed, watching television coverage of King's funeral. He had previously supported King's non-violent approach, which clashes with the group's move toward violent revolution. Johnny attempts to sober him up and urges him to come along, but he refuses, and Johnny leaves without him.

During the robbery, the white security guard is asleep at first, so the crew appears to have an easy score. Because they are short one man, Johnny makes a second trip into the warehouse to gather more guns. The guard awakens and opens fire; Johnny returns fire and kills him. In the melee, Johnny leaves behind his sweater with a name tag, making him a wanted man.

Tank, feeling remorseful, goes to the revolutionary group's headquarters to plead for reinstatement. B.G. and Jeannie rebuke him, stating that the committee has expelled him due to drinking and unreliability. They say they do not have time to run a rehab program.

On the street, Tank meets Clarence 'Daisy', a police informant who can money talk. Daisy brings him to his apartment, shows two photographs: one of Tank fighting two police officers during a riot, and another of Johnny's wanted poster. Daisy suggests that if Tank helps locate Johnny, she might make the photo disappear from police files.

Tank seeks comfort from his girlfriend Laurie, a single mother in the Hough ghetto. A welfare representative visits to verify she does not have a man around, threatening her benefits. Tank confronts the rep, nearly causing him to be hit by a car, and Laurie ends the relationship, dumping him.

Leaving Laurie's, Tank hears a voice from a burnt-out house: it is Johnny. Johnny says he plans to leave town but needs his sick mother watched, and asks Tank to attend the revolutionaries' meeting that night and have them send men to watch outside his mother's house during his visit. He also reminds Tank of their bond and says he loves him.

Tank bursts into the revolutionaries' meeting to relay Johnny's message. B.G. refuses to reinstate him, reminding Tank that Johnny wanted him out. Tank argues that Johnny trusted him to deliver the message, and B.G. asserts that Johnny was the one who urged his expulsion. He leaves in frustration and then goes to the police to inform on Johnny.

Following Tank's tip, police rush to Johnny's mother's apartment and shoot Johnny dead as he tries to escape. The act closes Johnny's arc and cuts short the plans of the group. The immediate consequences ripple through the already fractured group.

Tank uses the reward money to buy drinks for bar patrons, who assume he won it in the local numbers game. He wanders the town, visiting the steel factory where he worked for twenty years and an amusement arcade where he rambles about revolution to a wealthy, pretentious audience. He makes a large donation at Johnny's wake, raising suspicions among the revolutionaries.

At Johnny's wake, suspicion about Tank's loyalty grows among the revolutionaries. Daisy persuades them that Tank was the informant. In a makeshift trial, they convict him as the informant and sentence him to death.

Two of his former comrades take Tank to a burning scrapyard to execute him, but he escapes. He hops a passing train and hides in a rundown hotel on the edge of the Flats, where he calls Laurie. They acknowledge he is a dead man, but they reaffirm their love for each other.

The men assigned to kill Tank spot him and pursue him through the industrial Flats. He climbs onto a platform above enormous piles of iron ore; one pursuer hesitates, but the other shoots. Tank falls into the ore pile as an excavator dumps tons of ore over him, ending his struggle.