Review of Volunteers (1985) by Stcenterprise . — 11 Aug 2015

This is a movie about a young man who escapes his massive gambling debts by enlisting in the Peace Corps. It is a movie that is loaded with problems, and can't seem to deliver enough laughs to overcome all those shortcomings.

The first big flaw is the casting of Tom Hanks in the lead role. He is just too likable to pull off the part of this scuzzy gambler who takes advantage of his father and objectifies women. Also his attempt at a British accent is atrocious and really unnecessary.

The next thing that really stands out to me as a glaring fault in this movie is the fact that they squander the talents of John Candy. Almost every single genuine laugh that Volunteers managed to get from me was because of the amazing skill of John Candy.

Yet someone decided to write into the script events that had him disappear for almost half the movie. However, the ultimate misfire in Volunteers is the entire plot. They devised a film where there are at least 4 different factions all at play in the bridge-construction project assigned to the Peace Corps team.

Normally this would be where you create tension in your film, and yet they stupidly have every single group want the same outcome. It completely takes away any interest we might have in the bridge's construction and made me wonder why we even should care about anything that happens in the movie.

There are more deficiencies in the film (like the illogical romance) but they didn't bother me quite as much. In fact there were moments when I would say I was enjoying Volunteers. I still think it is a poor movie and I wouldn't recommend it, but I can't say I entirely hated watching it.