VOLUNTEERS

US, 1985, 107 minutes, Colour.
Tom Hanks, John Candy, Rita Wilson, Tim Thomerson, Gedde Watanabe, George Plimpton, Xander Berkley.
Directed by Nicholas Meyer.

Volunteers is an early Tom Hanks film. After appearing in the television series Bosom Buddies (where his future wife Rita Wilson was a guest), he made an impact in such films as Splash. By the late 1980s he had become a top star with such films as Punchline and, especially, Big. He began to get Oscar nominations. In the early 90s he appeared in The Bonfire of the Vanities but made a great impact in Sleepless in Seattle. He won Oscars in succeeding years for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. Since those films he has become one of the more upright characters and American films, continuing something of the James Stewart tradition. These films include Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile. He received a lot of notoriety for his performance as Robert Langdon in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code.

The film also stars comedian John Candy as well as Hanks’s future wife, Rita Wilson. The film was directed by Nicholas Meyer who is better known as a writer, especially in connection with the Star Trek films. Meyer was a novelist who wrote The Seven Percent Solution and moved into direction with his Jack the Ripper H.G. Wells fantasy, Time After Time. He has written a number of screenplays including The Human Stain.

The film focuses on an idle and rich young man who, to escape responsibility, joins the Peace Corps, finding himself in Asia, working with genial and idealistic young people to build a bridge. However, the bridge is the target for communist insurgents, for the United States and for a drug lord. There is a mixture of comedy and seriousness in this tale of an American innocent abroad in Asia, finding the realities of life as well as of international politics.

1. An interesting and entertaining film? The blend of the serious and the comic? A Tom Hanks vehicle? A John Candy vehicle? Their interactions?

2. The US in the 1960s, the sense of idealism with the establishing of the Peace Corps? The transition through the 70s and disillusionment of Watergate into the Reagan era of the 1980s? The Peace Corps and volunteers?

3. The Tom Hanks hero, the ironic hero? The spoilt young man? His relationship with his father (and the irony of the father being played by socialite and author George Plimpton? His friend, the car? His lack of responsibility? His decision, to join Peace Corps, the travelling to Thailand, his arriving? His seeing himself as the hero of his own story? More genial away from the United States? Yet a sardonic portrait of him?

4. The background of the Peace Corps, its establishment, its songs, idealism? The gung-ho attitude of the Americans? Confronting colonialism? The dangers of the Peace Corps being a new and more benign version of colonialism towards Asian people?

5. The portrait of the Thai people, the ‘them and us’ attitudes? the opportunists wanting to use the people? The background of the US and its relationship with Thailand, the communist insurgents, the drug lords and their hold?

6. Beth, the nice young woman, ideal, the CIA? Laurence and his interactions with her? The dinner, the kidnap? The rescue?

7. Tom Tuttle, the John Candy comic style, his talk, in himself, his capacity for work, gung-ho attitudes, the capture, the experience of brainwashing? The River Kwai (and the familiarity of audiences with the film and its issues)?

8. The CIA, the parody of the CIA, phallic symbols, madness?

9. The contrast with the communists? The target of CIA animosity? Their hold on the Thai people, on the villagers? Their action?

10. The drug lords, the manufacture of the drugs, the exports? The drug lords and their rule, henchmen? The conflict with the communists, with the CIA?

11. The bridge as a symbol of the possibilities for peace? The bridge as a symbol for animosities and struggle?

12. The context of the film? The United States in the 1980s, the wealthy families, universities, spoilt heirs? The need for some kind of shake-up of America and its attitudes, internationally?

13. The film seen in the retrospect of American foreign policy and attitudes in the decades after this film?