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
Director
Stan Dragoti
