The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Good concept, poorly executed.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

(Flash Review)Hanks has made a slew of high quality films and this being his third leading roll has to be one his worst. The director, writer and producer should all be ashamed with this as a result especially with the rather big names in the cast. The brittle plot is about some political mischief within the CIA and trying to get someone fired so one side tries to mislead the other by using a regular person as a pawn. Hanks is spotted because he is wearing...yep, you guessed it...one red shoe and he is unknowingly selected as the pawn. The other side views him as important and tracks him to discover what he knows. Que clumsy and stupid plot gags about Hanks tricking them all by accident as he goes about his regular routines. Will Hanks learn what he's in the middle of? With both CIA groups get what they want and outsmart each other? In addition to the strained comedy is a preposterous romantic sub-plot. Unless you are working through Hanks entire film catalog there is absolutely no need to watch this! And mercifully, Hanks has fewer underpants scenes than he had in Turner and Hooch. ZING.

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.

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

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.