Richard (Tom Hanks) is a daydreaming type who happens to be wearing one red running shoe when he returns from vacation at a Washington airport and is chosen at random as a fall guy by CIA aide Brown (Ed Herrmann).
There are warring factions within the CIA and nasty underling Cooper (Dabney Coleman at his sneaky best) lusts for the head position, held by Brown’s boss, Ross (Charles Durning).
Ross has been given 48 hours by a Senate investigating committee to come up with an explanation for his agency’s involvement in a cocaine-smuggling operation. To throw Cooper off the trail, poor Richard is misidentified as the mastermind of the drug deal, and the fun begins.
Richard – unaware of the chaos and danger bubbling all about him – goes his own blithe way without ever realising that his life hangs by a thread.
Lori Singer is both beautiful and funny as a contemporary Mata Hari who seduces Richard as part of her job and then, of course, falls in love with him. Jim Belushi and Carrie Fisher – as a hysterical friend and his unfaithful wife – get good comic mileage out of a wacky subplot.
Gerrit Graham has some wonderful deadpan moments as a hitman who thinks murder is the answer to all problems.
Richard
Tom Hanks Cooper
Dabney Coleman Maddy
Lori Singer Ross
Charles Durning Paula
Carrie Fisher Brown
Edward Herrmann Morris
Jim Belushi Virdon
Irving Metzman Reese
Tom Noonan Carson
Gerrit Graham Stemple
David L. Lander Hulse
Ritch Brinkley Edgar
Frank Hamilton Natalie
Dortha Duckworth Conductor
David Ogden Stiers
