gavin6942 A man picked randomly out of a crowd is made the target of CIA surveillance and pursuit.As Tom Hanks himself acknowledges, the movie is not that good. The plot is okay, but a bit convoluted. The comedy is more often of the absurd kind, and I am not sure it always succeeds. Jim Belushi is rather the strong point of the comedy parts. Also, as 1980s movies end to do, a romance is thrown in for some reason... it seems somewhat forced.What makes this movie worth watching, despite the "blah" of the overall plot and comedy, is the ensemble cast. Tom Hanks may be the star, but he probably doesn't have 50% of the screen time, because he is sharing it with Dabney Coleman, Jim Belushi, Carrie Fisher (in a small role), Charles Durning, Ed Hermann, Lori Singer, Gerrit Graham and more I'm not recalling at the moment. It is a truly impressive cast.

Rodrigo Amaro This is the kind of movie that when you watch it as a kid you laugh hysterically but as you grow a little older you realize how dumb and unfunny this is. It's terribly sad to see Tom Hanks, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Carrie Fisher, James Belushi and Edward Herrmann in something so out of ideas, so lifeless rarely achieving a minor sense of comedy. Mr. Dragoti, the director, has so much better than this, the cute and ten times funnier "Mr. Mom" with Michael Keaton. Comedy doesn't hit near in this story about a violin player (Hanks) targeted by two opposed cells of CIA, with one chief (Coleman) wanting the position of the other one (Durning), and obscurely one of them includes a mysterious and inexistent man that is very important to maintain his chair of director of the institution while the other is led to believe such man is the innocent and messy musician wearing one red shoe. The movie's scheme is to follow the duel between both chiefs using of plots, surveillance and handling of the poor subject who doesn't understand anything that's happening around him at the same time he's followed incessantly by his best friend's wife (Fisher), married with another musician (Belushi); and there's an attractive agent (Lori Singer) used as bait to attract Hanks character, the only plan that works.Humor can be found in the bathroom scene where all the objects functions were changed when Hanks was out of the house, so he has a lot of trouble to understand how the shower, sink and toilet work; Belushi overhearing a recording of his wife cheating on him, played on a fake ambulance; and the two field agents led by Herrmann character. But the rest is just worthless. Gerritt Graham is usually funny but here he was giving less than nothing to work with while Coleman is really annoying as the "smart" chief who think he knows it all. Above all, the movie falls on its own stupidity. You're giving us dumb characters in dumb situations but that doesn't mean all of it has to be presented in a stupid way. With elaborated sequences, a more gripping story that requires more than good humor on ridiculous ideas, and this wouldn't bomb all that much. It's tiring to see just people chasing people that you even forget what's the ultimate goal. The music is one of the few good aspects of it with the fun and present themes by Mr. Thomas Newman. Hope to see one day the French film that originated this, I heard great things about it. Now "The Man With One Red Shoe" is just useless. 4/10

ohioguy4jc I am a huge Tom Hanks fan. Being the fan that I am I do admit some of his earlier stuff was just so-so. This was one of those projects. I mean it had its moments but it just seemed like it was thrown together. Hanks and Belushi do an excellent job and they should have worked together more often when they both made it bigger maybe they will who knows. I think Tom Hanks has wondered to far away from comedy which he does really well. Splash, Bachelor Party, Big all great films in the 80's of his so if you want to see some of his older but good stuff those would be better. If you are just looking to pass the time this movie would be fine but if your looking for Tom Hanks at his very best this movie is not for you. 5 out of ten stars

therealcorsican Two rival CIA factions try to out-do and discredit each other; innocent bystander Hanks gets caught in the middle. Hilarity ensues. While this movie has it's share of problems (mostly having to do with continuity and sound editing), it is still one of my favorites. The humor is pretty understated most of the time, which is probably why a lot of other commentators on this site didn't get it. I agree with another poster who opined that these are the same folks who think that a guy screwing a pie or a girl rubbing semen in her hair are the epitome of comedy (I'm surprised, though, that they didn't find the flushing ambulance funny). Either that, or a false sense of culture makes them think the French original is better ("Look at me; I'm cultured; I like a French movie," they sniff).Some favorite moments (not in order):*Richard Drew (Hanks) gets darted in the arse as he tries to come on to Maddy (Singer), whom he discovered in his apartment. He gets lost while talking about fate as the drug take effect and then rambles on about it before passing out with the line, "No ma, I'm not watchin' tv; I'm practicin'!" then mimes playing the violin. The camera work here is a big part of the humor as it begins to wobble around in a drugged fashion; it then wobbles over to the spot on the floor where he is going to land when he passes out, which he then does. The sound gets a bit woozy during this part as well, which adds to the effect.*Drew goes to the dentist because his best friend (Belushi) gave him a pack of fake peanuts. Burt Cooper's (Coleman) team figures he's got some microfilm hidden in his teeth and send one of their dentists to retrieve it. (Cooper: "Take one of our dentists, and get that tooth for me." Carson: "How do I know which tooth?" Cooper: "Yeah. Well; better, uh, better just yank 'em all."). The "dentist" gets there early and knocks everyone in the office out with an aerosol spray, then lays in wait for Drew. Ross's (Durning) underling Brown (Herrmann) sends one of his own operatives to intercept and protect Drew. Drew shows up at the dentist's office to find no one around, the phone ringing incessantly, and moaning coming from one of the back rooms which stops as Cooper's dentist re-gasses a patient who started to wake up. He says, "huh-uh," and leaves. As he is getting into the elevator, Ross's man (Noonan) gets off the other elevator. Cooper's dentist mistakes him for Drew, knocks him out, and takes all his teeth. When Cooper finds out that Drew left, he is still under the impression that Drew is some kind of super-operative whose finely-honed instincts smelled the trap (never once considering that it was his own agent's incompetence that tipped him off).*A string of mishaps cause Morris (Belushi) to think he is hallucinating dead bodies. He goes to the bathroom and, as he is standing there urinating, the door creaks open to reveal yet another dead operative hanging on the back of the door. He turns slowly around (unmindful of the fact that he is still peeing), sees the guy hanging there, turns to the camera and cries, "Aw, come on!"*When Drew decides that perhaps the dentist is not the best idea and leaves, he catches Maddy's sweep team off guard; they still have his apartment mostly disassembled. In their rush to get things back together, they put things back together wrong (shampoo in the toothpaste tube, plumbing re-arranged) and the effects are seen throughout the rest of the movie.*The car/bicycle chase where you think the car is going to go up a ramp and jump a truck.I could go on and on. This movie is simply hilarious. Yes, there are problems; as when Maddy (Singer) delivers the line; "GBLX?!? But that's in charge of our entire missile defense system!" I had to groan at that one. Cooper's on-again/off-again glasses in the final foot chase scene. Some lines of dialog that were obviously dubbed in later (I guess some of the physical humor was *too* subtle for test audiences). But these are minor issues.You may need to watch more than once to get it. And I almost forgot to mention the soundtrack, which is outstanding! I became an instant Thomas Newman fan (Road to Perdition, The Green Mile, American Beauty, Finding Nemo among many others) with this movie and was very disappointed that there was no soundtrack album available. In fact, I originally bought the VHS primarily so I could hear the soundtrack in stereo but fell in love with the movie itself upon repeated viewings. He is my favorite among the musical Newmans which include brother David (Ice Age, Daddy Day Care), cousin Joey (TV series Providence, Once and Again), 9-time Oscar-winner father Alfred (Seven-Year Itch, 20th Century Fox Logo theme), and uncles Lionel and Emil; all are well-known composers, not to mention cousin Randy.Highly recommended.