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When an exclusive military school is threatened with demolition by a rapacious real-estate company, the students, headed by Brian Moreland (Timothy Hutton), take drastic action. Utilizing every bit of military know-how at their disposal, the boys take over the school, arm themselves to the teeth, and prepare to do battle against the "invading" developers. General Bache George C. Scott, the head of the academy, tries to quell the rebellion, but soon he too is swept up by the students' to-the-death determination when the Army is called in to rout the boys. Based on Devery Freeman's novel Father Sky, Taps features early appearances by Sean Penn (in his movie debut) and Tom Cruise as two of the cadets.