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starring: Tom Hanks, John Candy, Rita Wilson, Tim Thomerson, Gedde Watanabedirected by: Nicholas Meyer
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301932837
Format: Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6301932838
Label: Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Hbo Home Video
Release Date: December 29, 1998
Running Time: 107 minutes
Sales Rank: 29987
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: August 16, 1985
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Before Tom Hanks was an Oscar-winning megacelebrity, before he became a serious and only sometimes comedic actor, before he won that second Oscar, he starred in both romantic comedies (Splash) and lowbrow comedies (Bachelor Party). More lowbrow than romantic (though he did end up marrying costar Rita Wilson), Volunteers is set in 1962, back when the Peace Corps was all the rage. Hanks, speaking with an unfortunate accent meant to represent aristocratic wealth, plays a compulsive gambler, recently graduated from Yale, whose father suddenly refuses to pay his debts. To escape some particularly shady characters, he joins the Peace Corps and boards a plane headed to Southeast Asia.
For a comedy made in the '80s, there is less of a reliance on (Asian) stereotypes for punch lines than one would predict, though the movie is far from being politically sensitive. And speaking of politics, the politics of the movie are all messed up, ending up as a huge indictment of the Peace Corps as a corrupt tool of the government, despite some kind words at the end. Perhaps the biggest drawback of the movie, though, is its 107-minute running time; there's just too much emphasis on plot. Whenever costar John Candy appears, everything picks up, making you wish he was the star and the movie was about his character, Tom Tuttle from Tacoma, Washington. Ultimately, Volunteers ends up a better legacy for Candy than Hanks. --Andy Spletzer
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - 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."
Rating: - 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
Rating:  - 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 ... Read More
Rating: - 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 ... Read More
Rating: - 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 ... Read More
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