L'Homme à la Chaussure Rouge

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.

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.

There is a rivalry between Burton Cooper (Dabney Coleman) and his boss CIA director Ross (Charles Durning). Maddy (Lori Singer) is one of Cooper's agents. Cooper is able to doublecross Ross by getting a CIA agent arrested for cocaine smuggling in Morocco. The Senate calls on Ross to testify and he has 48 hours. Ross intends to misdirect Cooper by sending him on a wild goose chase. Ross' second Brown (Edward Herrmann) picks random guy at the airport, Richard Drew (Tom Hanks), the man with one red shoe. Richard is a violinist having an affair with his best friend Morris (Jim Belushi)'s wife Paula (Carrie Fisher). Cooper swallows the bait whole as his team struggles to discover what evidence Richard has against him.

Tom Hanks is playing an everyman. If this movie works at all, it is due to his charms. At times, it tries to be a screwball comedy but it never gets to be outright funny. It's nice ... like Hanks. He's never unleashed and neither is the movie.

If there is a lesson to be learned by Hollywood is not to try to remake whatever was already made, and better. Which seems to be a lesson American movie people seem to forget. The criteria might be that the original film didn't reach a wide American audience, thus the reason for the remake, but frankly, neither Stan Dragoti, the director, or Robert Klane, its adapter, put a dent in what Francis Vever and Yves Robert achieved with the original.

Then again, if one hasn't seen the French film of the same name, this comedy will appear to be the real thing. In fact, there are hardly any laughs in the film. The best sequence involves the Richard and Maddy in the seduction scene where some of her hair is caught in a zipper.

In a way, this was Tom Hanks' third film as a lead man. One can't blame him because he is bogged down by a screen play that could have been better. Tom Hanks pales in comparison with the original Pierre Richard, who was a better comedian.

The cast shows several familiar faces, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Edward Herrmann, John Belushi, but ultimately the ones that fare better in the film are Lori Singer and Carrie Fisher in smaller roles, but ones that afford these two actress good opportunities in which to shine.

Stick with the original version if you can find it in DVD format.

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.