L'uomo con la scarpa rossa

This is an American remake from French film written by Ives Roberts and Francis Veber.An innocent concert violinist(Tom Hanks, in the role of the French, Pierre Richard) is wrongly targeted, then he's pursued by a corrupts CIA agents(Art La Flour, Tom Noonan, among others) led by a nasty chief(Dabney Coleman, in the role of Bernard Blier). It's all because an assistant(Edward Herrmann)to head(Charles Durning) of CIA picked the violinist when he was in the airport as a decoy to dupe his contender. Meanwhile he falls in love with a sexy girl(Lori Singer, role of Mireille Darc)who's spying him. But the villain boss orders his complete elimination .

This is an easy-going comedy with hearty humor, suspense, and a little of action . The tale involves murders, botchers spies,loving lies and quite amusing. Considerable comic talents act with hilarious perfection, they include Hanks, James Belushi and Dabney Coleman, among them. The film is plenty of gags, especial mention for the laughters with a director orchestra interpreted by David Odgen Steirs, arguing against his bumbling players Hanks acting at whole show, Belushi and Carrie Fisher who are playing 'Scherezade' by Rimski Korsakov. Catching musical score by Thomas Newman, though is composed by synthesizer and appropriate cinematography by Richard H Kline. The motion picture is regularly directed by Stan Dragoti. He's usual comedies director, such as, Love at first bite, Zorro gay and Mr Mom.

In a desperate attempt to keep his job as the director of the CIA "Ross" (Charles Durning) directs his assistant "Brown" (Edward Herrmann) to select a person at random and falsely suggest to his main rival "Cooper" (Dabney Coleman) that this innocent bystander has secret information that might thwart Cooper's political ambitions. To that end, Brown selects an eccentric musician named "Richard" (Tom Hanks) because he is wearing one red shoe due to a practical joke played on him by his best friend "Morris" (James Belushi). As expected, Cooper takes the bait and immediately puts all of his resources into finding out what Richard knows. However, what Cooper doesn't realize is the difficulty his agents encounter when they submerge themselves into Richard's bizarre life. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie started off a bit slow but got pretty funny towards the end with Morris deservedly having to endure his share of comedic mishaps. Admittedly, this wasn't a great comedy by any means but I still found it entertaining enough and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

OK, it's not the most brilliant piece of art in the world, but neither is it the turkey that the video guides make it out to be. It's a cute spy-cliché spoof with good performances from Hanks, Durning, Coleman, Belushi, Herrman and particularly Tom Noonan as the deadpan Agent Reese. Super music by Thomas Newman (one of his first scores), an elegant string of sight gags featuring Belushi and a couple of corpses, and a sweet ending scene more than make up for the underlying silliness of the plot and a handful of flatly delivered lines. Good to watch on a Sunday afternoon when you need to occupy your mind, but not TOO much.

There are many different excuses to laugh, and any film that gives us one of them falls into that big bucket we call comedy.

I don't suppose anyone knows much about what makes us laugh, but like yesterday's stock market results, everyone seems to have an opinion about failed comedy. This is a classic failed comedy, regardless of whether you thought the original French film successful.

The story is that a crew of trained professionals mistakenly assume one thing and then grind that conclusion quite literally to death. The same thing happened to the crew that made this stinker.

The women are marginally interesting. Lori singer was a real string player; here she plays the prostituting spy to a string player. Carrie Fisher was deep into her skinny drugged out highly sexed period and plays someone much the same (with a reference to Princess Leia and the wookie).

Hanks only once in a rare while really tries to act. This isn't one of those times. My own theory is that he needs a challenging director.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Remake of the 1972 French comedy "The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe" hasn't the flair needed for sophisticated spy comedy, and so instead fizzles a bit despite a colorful cast. Tom Hanks is green and occasionally shrill as a concert violinist who is mistaken for a spy by the CIA and is completely unaware that he is being followed, photographed and shot at; Lori Singer struggles with a real puzzler of a role as a beautiful agent(always back-lit)who has to seduce Hanks--but she seems so fed up with his bumbling that their romance comes as something of a shock. Jim Belushi has some fun as Hanks' musician buddy whose wife is cheating on him, but Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning and Carrie Fisher are all wasted.