The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

So much average

Powerful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

"The Tall Blonde With One Black Shoe" was a delightful spy-farce written by the French Billy Wilder: Francis Veber. It was a tale of mistaken identity, featuring a poor schmuck who had the misfortune to look weird enough at the airport to be selected by secret agents as a foil for a rival organization, in order to create a distraction while a real agent was operating. Most of the gags resulted from the hero's ignorance of what was happening, being the straight man of a rodeo of gags he unknowingly caused.It's certainly a credit to Veber's talent (more than probable connections with Hollywood) that most, if not all, of his films were remade by American directors; they exuded a particular flavor that could be easily cooked up with American ingredients. Still, the problem with the remakes is that they were all remakes, which means that they didn't try to change the original plot, let alone to improve it. In the best case, they had the merit to awaken the curiosity of some foreign movie buffs who probably thought it would be a better idea to check the original film instead. "The Man With One Red Shoe" is one of these 'for-the-sake-of-it" remakes.The director, Stan Dragoti, is in such a hurry to get to the infamous airport scene that the whole set-up in Morocco is irrelevant; it could have gotten to the point as well without trying too hard to give an explanation, and the assumption a 'serious' set-up for a promising screwball gag is immediately deceived when Tom Hanks makes his entrance, as Richard Drew. The film then challenges your patience while the first gags (because we don't expect subtle verbal humor, there had to be gags) take their time.I like Tom Hanks in his clumsy curly-haired earlier roles, but it's a shame how his talent is underexploited for the role, it's another shame that with such a great comedic casting (Dabney Coleman, Carrie Fisher, Charles Durning and Jim Belushi), the comedy fails lamentably. Even Lori Singer was good for the role but there was no way left to us to believe there was chemistry between her and the unfortunate hero. She was just the beautiful blonde agent, Richard a gentle bachelor and ta-ta, it had to work. Dragoti takes the original script for granted and never tries to outsmart it a little bit.Not that the gags were totally absent though, Jim Belushi saves the day as the cuckolded best friend, but even in the supposed-to-be-funny scenes where he tries to show Hanks that something weird is going on, there's a problem of timing, of direction, that makes all the gags fall flat, like a false note. The film even fails to reprise the most iconic moment with Singer's bottomless robe when her hair is stuck in the zipper, in the French film, it took time to get to it, here it's so fast we don't have time to savor the growing romance. If reprising a good film was enough to make another good film, many directors would use the same trick.Reading Roger Ebert's review, I noticed he said "the first film wasn't even funny in the first place", not true, it was funny in a patient and subtle way, it was funny because it was French agents acting seriously like in James Bond movies, which was already a gag by itself. "The Man With One Red Shoe" could have done better if it didn't try to imitate French imitating Americans, simply make the agents more ruthless, a darker humor, more blood, more chaos around Hanks. But it's like they didn't even trust their own capabilities, at the end, the film, ironically, gets even less violent than the remake, which is saying a lot. Didn't I say the director didn't challenge his own material?And how about the ultimate confrontation between the leaders, the whole punch line is missing. For all we know, Durning turns into the mastermind to another employee and that's that, nothing else, Coleman and Durning together, that would have been something. Anyway, the film doesn't bring much newness to the screen to a point that it didn't even attract the Razzie's attention, it's just one film without pretension, a plot recycled to please the American audience, but without trying too hard. Why not inserting KGB agents? Why not having Singer playing a Russian spy? How about some outdoor gags, given the budget they had for the opening scene, they could have afforded it.But no, they played it to the cards, and 30 years later, as it shows, the film is totally forgotten, not worthy enough to be called a cult-classic. I liked it when I first saw it but then I was only 11 and didn't even see the remake. Ironically, I saw more Veber's remakes before the originals but each time, they didn't hold a candle. "The Man With One Red Shoe" doesn't trust its own potential and can't exceed the limits of the original script, which doesn't work for an American setting.At least, "Dinner for Schmucks" tried very hard to Americanize the French version and to give it a taste of zaniness; at least, Steve Carrel reinvented a whole new character, different than the original. The remake wasn't better for all that, but at least it tried.

Based on the French film "Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire," this American version stars Tom Hanks, Lori Singer, Dabney Coleman, Carrie Fisher, John Belushi, Charles Durning, and Edward Hermann.Hanks plays Richard Harlan Drew, a violinist, who is chosen at random as a "spy" by Ross, the head of a CIA-like agency, Cooper (Durning) when he knows that his second in command (Coleman) is out to destroy him and take his place. As expected, Cooper, having bugged Ross' home, is all over Drew and enlists the aide of another spy (Singer) to get close to him and get information.It's an amusing plot - a kind of Everyman whose every move, every piece of music played, every friend, is misinterpreted as something to do with espionage.The problem is, the film is amusing when I think it was intended to be hilarious. The best performance for my money comes from Dabney Coleman, who has the best line in the movie: "Honey, will you please - what are the odds of the Russians attacking on a Thursday night?" The big chase scene at the end, with Drew on his bicycle, is for my money the best scene in the movie.Doesn't make much of an impact, but everybody in it is very good.

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

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.