Volunteers (1985)

Terribly funny

This movie has it all... the upper-crust socialite, the super-patriotic and single-minded engineer, an idealist do-gooder, a Chinese warlord, a CIA agent, a foreign kid who's picked up American slang, Commie agents... the list goes on and on. This has always been one of my favorite movies and I like watching it every once in a while, whenever I feel like laughing at the Peace Corps. "We were never crazy about the bridge anyway." February 7, 2008

ok

i love tom hanks and if you do too this is him at his best, so you should own big too, if not go get it February 6, 2008

John Candy is always funny

"Volunteers" was a comedy that has some laughs but should have had more considering the talent involved. Tom Hanks, John Candy, Rita Wilson, and Tim Thomerson star and do their best with the material. Hanks plays a rich Yale graduate who is in trouble with gambling debts. When his father refuses to pay, he escapes by getting on a Peace Corp plane. Wilson and Candy play people who actually volunteered for the Peace Corp and Thomerson is the government representative in Thailand. The movie's biggest problem is too many plotlines and not enough time to work them all out properly. But John Candy is funny as he always is as "Tom Tuttle from Tacoma" and Thomerson turns out to be CIA and nuts (his knife is named Mike and he holds conversations with it). The volunteers build a bridge that it turns out is wanted by the US government, the communists and a local drug lord. John Candy gets brainwashed by the commies, Rita and Tom fall in love and eventually the bridge gets blown up.

Volunteers isn't a great movie, but it has some laughs and is better the second time you watch it. January 13, 2006

Two thumbs up from a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

Being a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer myself I find this film hysterical. The first time I saw it, in fact, was while in Peace Corps at a training session with fellow volunteers. We couldn't stop laughing the entire time! It's just ridiculously overdone - and wonderful because of it :)

Sure, it's campy and the jokes are predictable, but it was never meant to be a high-brow film. The jokes are often over the top and half the plot is totally unrealistic, but it's funny nonetheless - perhaps moreso if only because of these things.

I highly recommend this movie - John Candy and Tom Hanks always shine as a comedic pair and this movie is no exception. Hanks' cluelessly priveleged character coupled with Candy's overzealous patriotic naivety is a perfect comedic match-up. December 21, 2005

John Candy's remake of "The Manchurian Candidate."

Lawrence Bourne III (Tom Hanks) is escaping a domestic debt. In the process he takes someone else's place in the Peace Corps. Finding the people around him a little too obsessed with their mission; He attempts of add a little civilization to it.

This movie shows glimpses into the way governments are run and the people that make it happen. How the Peace Corps makes a difference in the lives of the natives and the people in the Corps. Bridging the gap among factions (why build a bridge and its eventual use). Some are manipulators and some are sincere. The best are gung-ho (John Candy).

Worth seeing. It gets better with each viewing.

September 18, 2005

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