by Daniel Stephens

Created on: July 15, 2009   Last Updated: March 21, 2011

The Man With One Red Shoe (Stan Dragoti, USA, 1985)

Dir. Stan Dragoti; starring Tom Hanks, Dabney Coleman

Before Tom Hanks got Oscar-happy after Philadelphia and he moved into much more dramatic roles, he was like an 1980's version of Groucho Marx, just stripped of that singular originality and as superficial as the period.

Certainly, his direction change wasn't unwelcome because as an actor in the nineties he's delivered some of the most iconic films of the period, excelling with some truly great directors with his roles in Forrest Gump, The Polar Express, Cast Away, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Road To Perdition, and The Ladykillers.

Yet his eighties output was a joy to watch for so many, and he proved on many an occasion that he was an assured comic actor. It was just a shame that the films he was working on weren't always built on the best of foundations. The Man With One Red Shoe is one of those films, but it's the type of hollow fluff that tastes like candy floss and goes down a treat.

Based on the French original entitled The Tall Blonde Man With One Black Shoe, the American remake all but extinguishes the social comment, happily allowing the quite complicated plot create many an absurd moment, relying on the resulting humour to cover-up the inadequacies of a story that would have brain surgeons struggling to follow. Basically, the CIA have some upper-crust head honcho trying to further his career, and Tom Hanks becomes the pawn to play with after operatives begin tracking him when he gets off a plane. Totally oblivious to their presence Hanks' character goes about his everyday life without realising the government are following his every move. Soon enough things get even more complicated when he falls in love with one of the female CIA agents, while an affair he had with his best friend's wife becomes local news.

It's easy to compare the film with others Hanks made in the period - it has the madcap feel of Dragnet but doesn't share the unique oddness of the Aykroyd/Hanks vehicle; it has the feel-good nature and stand-out characters of Volunteers and Bachelor Party, but it doesn't have the ingenuity of The 'burbs or Hanks on top form like Big and The Money Pit. It's one of those films Hanks made that is destined to be forgotten, shifted to the back of the pile and forever a midnight movie on some backwater television channel (a bit like Punchline).

Admittedly, it is quite convoluted and while it does have some laughs the characters don't

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