Synopsis
After his rich father refuses to pay his debt, compulsive gambler Lawrence Bourne III joins the Peace Corps to evade angry creditors. In Thailand, he is assigned to build a bridge for the local villagers with the help of American-As-Apple-Pie WSU Grad Tom Tuttle and the beautiful and down-to earth Beth Wexler. What they don't realize is that the bridge is coveted by the U.S. Army, a local Communist force, and a powerful drug lord. Together with the help of At Toon, the only English speaking native, they must fight off the three opposing forces and find out what is right for the villagers, as well as themselves.
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Cast
- Tom HanksLawrence Whatley Bourne III
- John CandyTom Tuttle
- Rita WilsonBeth Wexler
- Tim ThomersonJohn Reynolds
- Gedde WatanabeAt Toon
- George PlimptonLawrence Bourne Jr.
- Ernest HaradaChung Mee
- Allan ArbusAlbert Bardenaro
- Xander BerkeleyKent Sutcliffe
- Ji-Tu CumbukaCicero
Recommendations
- 70
The New York Times
Take a healthy helping of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a dollop of The Bridge on the River Kwai, a dash of any Tarzan movie, a soupcon of Casablanca, a whiff of The Wizard of Oz and a stunt or two from a favorite Saturday serial, stir frenetically, and if you're lucky enough to have snappy dialogue by Ken Levine and David Isaacs, you may end up with as funny a movie as Volunteers. - 63
Miami Herald
Volunteers is for the most part so good-natured and eager to please, or at least to solicit laughs, that it may be forgiven many sins. Many of the jokes simply don't work, but in the style forged by Airplane!, Volunteers keeps them coming. Wait long enough, you'll laugh; wait again, you'll laugh again. [16 Aug 1985, p.D1] - 63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A comedy boasting a gimmick worth a peek. For, into this remembrance of time past and youth altruistic, the script injects a heavy dose of up-to-the-minute pragmatism. [16 Aug 1985] - 60
TV Guide Magazine
Hanks is excellent and has a way with funny lines that marks him as one of the better droll comic actors, if given the right material. Here, writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs have provided the actors with solid jokes. - 60
Time Out
A blasé Hanks redeems this string of sexist, racist, comic clichés with winning charm. It's funny. - 50
Chicago Tribune
It's a shame that this often cute script couldn't have better served, and been better served by, its actors. - 50
Variety
Volunteers is a very broad and mostly flat comedy [from a story by Keith Critchlow] about hijinx in the Peace Corps, circa 1962. Toplined Tom Hanks gets in a few good zingers as an upperclass snob doing time in Thailand, but promising premise and opening shortly descend into unduly protracted tedium. - 50
Washington Post
Volunteers is a collection of one-liners, mostly good, wrapped around an undeveloped story, generally dull. Despite its frequent glimmers of intelligence, it's an unsatisfactory comedy that yawns to a close.
