Does Tom Hanks deliberately take movies that look like other people's movies?
Last year Hanks hit it big with "Big," the story of a kid in an adult's body that followed hot on the heels of the similar, but much weaker "body-switch" efforts "Like Father, Like Son," "Vice Versa" and "18 Again!"
This year he has "Turner & Hooch," a film suspiciously like the James Belushi picture "K-9," which came out earlier. And again, Hanks' film is better — but this time it's not enough better to make much of a difference.
Not that any of that will matter. "K-9," as awful as it was, was a hit. "Turner & Hooch," being better — and having the supremely likable Hanks — will likely also click.
Like Belushi in "K-9," Hanks in "Turner & Hooch" is a bachelor cop who is reluctantly teamed up with a dog and develops a relationship with the animal that is better than any he's ever had with a human.
As "Turner," however, Hanks doesn't play the expected big-city "Dirty Harry"-style maverick cop. Turner is a small-town police investigator who has more dimension and seems more real than the "movie cop" Belushi played.
Turner is sort of the Felix Unger of law enforcement, which is established under the opening credits as we see him fussing over his apartment, his laundry and his dinner. It's a nice switch from the slob males we see all too often in movies today.
Hanks plays Turner very well and has some moments of hilarity, mostly when he's simply cut loose to run with his character.
But the movie clearly belongs to Hanks' co-star, a dog named Beasley playing the second title character "Hooch." He's the Oscar Madison of the piece, a "junkyard" dog, and perhaps the ugliest creature to become lovable over the course of a movie since "E.T."
"Turner & Hooch" is an "Odd Couple" story to be sure, with a lot of jokes relying on Hooch's slobbering and a "big laugh" scene that has Hooch's flatulence causing a riot in the police station.
This should give you some idea of the level of humor that goes on all too often here.
Worse, however, the film doesn't know whether it wants to be a cutesy comedy or a thriller, as it revolves around a murder/drug money plot.
The result is that it's a bit too rough for kids but far too simple-minded for adults. (If you don't figure out how the police chief, played by Craig T. Nelson, figures into the plot very early on, turn in your movie-detective badge.)
Hanks manages to come out unscathed, however, displaying his natural screen charm in abundance, and Mare Winningham, underused as his love interest, also shines. Reginald VelJohnson, best-remembered as the cop in touch with Bruce Willis by two-way radio in "Die Hard," is also very good as Hanks' cohort.
But the five writers credited with the screenplay don't seem to have a clear handle on what they want this film to be, and even less clear is the vision of director Roger Spottiswoode, who seems more at home with thrillers — he gave us "Shoot to Kill" and "Under Fire" — than with comedy.
"Turner & Hooch" is rated PG for violence, a single profanity and a sexual encounter between Hanks and Winningham, though it seems easily to be in PG-13 territory.