Turner and Hooch

Released:  July 28^th, 1989

Rated:  PG

Distributor:  Buena Vista Pictures

Starring:  Tom Hanks, Mare Winningham, Craig T. Nelson, Reginald VelJohnson

Directed by:  Roger Spottiswoode

Written by:  Dennis Shryack, Michael Blodgett, Daniel Petrie Jr., Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr.

Personal Bias Alert:  not a fan of broad comedy, likes Tom Hanks

3.5 of 10

            Perhaps everyone doesn’t think of Turner and Hooch as a ubiquitous movie.  Perhaps you weren’t born at the right time, weren’t developing into a little kid as the movie and its star was peaking in popularity.  Some of us, myself included, did come along at just the right time, and for us Turner and Hooch are as basic a duo as Abbott and Costello, Cagney and Lacey, or Thelma and Louise.  As with most ubiquitous pop culture from your early childhood, I’d never actually seen the film.  I always seemed to know that it was a cop comedy, which isn’t entirely true, but who wants to explain to a kid that the film suffers from horrendous tonal issues and can’t decide a genre it wants to stick to.

            As far as the primary plot, my childhood remembrances are mostly correct.  Turner and Hooch is a buddy cop movie, with Investigator Turner (Tom Hanks) pairing up with the dog of a murder victim.  The relationship is tenuous at first; Turner is a control freak while Hooch is a slobbering, chewing, door-busting menace.  To say that Hooch brings havoc to Turner’s life is an understatement.  In addition to the bad dog routine that the audience is supposed to find funny, he also introduces Turner to the new vet in town.  Obviously, she’s an appropriately aged woman who comes on to him very quickly, because the movie’s been making a point that Turner needs a girlfriend.  But there’s also that very serious murder case that Turner must solve before he leaves for a new job, and the clock is constantly ticking.  Experiencing whiplash yet?  Remember, all this is crammed into a mere 97 minutes, delivering essentially three crappy movies for the condensed time and price of one.

            Why, you may be asking, are all three mini-movies crappy?  It’s because each follow such basic and clichéd outlines that the audience may as well be watching a ten year old doing some paint by number kit.  The kid may be a bit too old for such activities, but he plods along anyway, turning in a competent rendering of the picture he was instructed to create before tossing it aside with the rest of the trash.  He’ll never remember he did it, you’ll never remember you watched it, and the world won’t give a crap that it ever happened.  Competent is just plain boring, especially when it comes to movies, and Turner and Hooch’s parts are nothing more than a poorly assembled blob of competence.

            In fact, its flaws are one of the few things that’ll keep your attention.  The jostling of these genres are so abrupt and mismanaged that it’s no surprise to find that some jostling occurred behind the camera as well.  Director Roger Spottiswoode took over the helm two weeks into filming after original director Henry Winkler (yep, The Fonz) was fired.  Then there’s the big group of less than distinguished writers that contributed to the screenplay:  pairs Dennis Shryack and Michael Blodgett (Rent-a-Cop), Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. (Anaconda), and loner Daniel Petrie Jr. (all three Beverly Hills Cop films).  The fact that this large of a group significantly contributed to the screenplay makes fluidity near impossible, and a last-minute director that inevitably didn’t have time to examine the material certainly led to the scattershot effort that is Turner and Hooch.

            There is a silver lining to this movie, and it’s the most obvious silver lining there is:  Tom Hanks.  The man is one of the most versatile actors out there, so of course he can do the romantically studious cop getting dragged through doors by a dog trick.  All he has to do is flash that smile and we all love him.  If it needs to be said, this is far from Hank’s best role, but he goes all in as he usually does, throwing his body (which we see an awful lot of thanks to a pair of black briefs) into the action and the comedy.  He’s got good rapport with Mare Winningham as his love interest, too, and his efforts make the first hour of the film passable.  But the material can’t support your attention for much longer than that, no matter how charming your leads are.

            I suppose we need to keep this film around for the Tom Hanks completists out there, but for everyone else this film should be skipped.  There are better representations of funny Tom Hanks, of buddy cops, of destructive dogs, better everything that this film has to offer.  As for me, I’m taking Turner and Hooch off my list of dynamic duos.

Other Notes:

Ø  Uh oh, that music from 2001: A Space Odyssey was used for the dog’s entrance.  He must be a handful, and this film must be devoid of subtlety.

Ø  Should dogs drink beer?

Ø  What a waste of a muffin.