Turner & Hooch (1989)

Between Christmas and New Year I watched Captain Phillips for the first time, a movie on my list of movies I've wanted to watch for ages but for whatever reason, never got round to it. There's a lot of movies on there. It's a long list. And I know I'm not exactly spotlighting an unearthed gem or anything here, but Tom Hanks absolutely smashed it in that movie. How he didn't win an Oscar is beyond me. And I know he's internationally recognized and is a Hollywood A-Lister and for all the right reasons but I sort of felt that even so, Tom Hanks goes a little bit under appreciated right? So having enjoyed him in Captain Phillips so much, I thought I'd give one of his movies on my watchlist a chance this evening. Turner & Hooch, a 1989 "buddy cop" movie has found it's way into my Disney+ watchlist for some reason, potentially not a good reason... so I thought for my inaugural 2023 Disney week post I'd see how Tom gets on in what is only the 12th odd movie he's ever starred in so far at this point, 5 years before Forrest Gump makes him a household name.

Detective Scott Turner (Tom Hanks) is a meticulous perfectionist, and potentially a severe OCD sufferer... on the verge of leaving the sleepy town police force of Cypress Beach to relocate to Sacramento, when his weeks leave is suddenly cancelled upon the discovery of the dead body of local man living on the pier, and a person familiar to Scott, Amos (John McIntire) and his very much alive, very familiar to Scott, dog, Hooch (Beasley) a French Mastiff. Rescuing Hooch from the wrong end of a bullet, Scott "takes" Hooch... or Hooch takes Scott would probably be more accurate to see home based Vet Emily Carson (Mare Winningham), who after fixing Hooch up leaves him in the very capable, but unwilling hands of Scott Turner...! Scott's transition into dog owner has a rocky start... with Hooch fist chewing up his car and then completely trashing the apartment whilst Scott is out. This leads Scott to throwing him out the house completely, but after Hooch winds up bringing home a lady dog friend... Scott finds himself taking both she and Hooch back to Vet Emily where one thing leads to another and before he knows it, Scott finds himself decorating her house. No I mean, literally painting the walls of the house with her. Not y'know, metaphorically it err... doesn't matter... and by the end of the spontaneous decorating session it's remarkably obvious that both of them have a thing for each other. The following morning, after first giving Hooch a bath... in the yard, Scott takes Hooch into the office with him where Hooch, starts barking and breaks out, chasing after a wedding photographer shooting a wedding across the street. Leading to Scott and his future replacement David Sutton (Reginald VelJohnson) to give chase after him. As the mystery photographer speeds off in his car, Scott, David and Hooch commandeer a residents car and give chase. Although the car manages to get away, Scott learns enough about him to identify that his name is Zack Gregory (Scott Paulin), a former Marine with trouble in his past now employed at Boyett Seafood. Scott makes the link with Boyett Seafood, being across the way from where Amos lived and requests permission to search the place. Overjoyed with Hooch ID'ing Zack Gregory, Scott begins to soften to Hooch and in turn becomes slightly less uptight about his perfectionism himself. Unfortunately though, the search at Boyett Seafood yields nothing but after a phone call, a walk on the beach and a quick escalation to lovers with Emily, Scott suddenly has a epiphany and dashes back to Boyett Seafood with Hooch in tow and after staking the place out literally all night, starts acting outside of the rules when he uses Hooch to sniff around the place without permission and uncovers some evidence that may link the place to Amos's murder. Scott proceeds to visit a motel where he believes Zack Gregory may be hiding out, and after comforting the uncooperative owner, he is abducted at gunpoint by Zack but turns the tables on him and with Hooch's help, is not only able to get a confession but also intel on what's happening at the Seafood plant. Scott learns that Zack, owner Walter Boyett (J.C Quinn) and his own Police Chief; Chief Howard Hyde (Craig T. Nelson) are using the plant to launder money and when he storms the place with an unknowing Chief Howard, he quickly turns the tables on the Chief in order to make the arrest, but is distracted by Boyett and a gunfight breaks out with Hooch getting shot during the fighting. After Boyett gets taken out, eventually killed by Chief Howard who offers Scott a way out in order to cover his own tracks, Scott with a distraction from a wounded Hooch eventually overpowers him but with the gun going off and killing the Chief in the process. Rushing Hooch to Emily, Emily tries to do the best she can but Hooch lost too much blood and he doesn't make it. Man.... Jeez movie... what a gut punch! Fast forward some... short time later, and Scott is now Cypress Beach Chief, living with Emily and thanks to Hooch's randy behaviour has a French Mastiff puppy all of his own! N'AWWWWWWW.

I really enjoyed this one guys. Yeah, it was pretty good. I mean, Tom Hanks is just a pleasure to watch and he's quickly growing into a favourite for me. But this was just a really enjoyable movie with it. I'm not sure how it ended up on my Watchlist given that it's mostly cobbled together with quirky DCOM's, obscure live action stuff, and underwhelming sequels. But I must have clocked it on a list somewhere to add it to the collection? But there was honestly very little to critique here and very little that they didn't get right. 

Tom Hanks is outstanding. I mean it should go without saying but this is 5 years before his breakout success and it's clear already by this point that he just has something magic. He's commanding in every scene he's in, switches from straight up serious to goofy comedy at the flick of a switch and is simultaneously the goody, awkward singleton and the authoritarian Police Detective. It's hardly surprising he went on to greater successes after this and the chemistry he shares with Hooch - a dog is brilliant. He is just so enjoyable to watch.

But the rest of the acting was pretty decent along with it, even if the other characters were a little bit bland. Emily the Vet is the stereotypical love interest. Zack Gregory is the stereotypical bad guy and David Sutton is the stereotypical sidekick but none of the respective actors are especially bad at what they are doing and all the roles are portrayed perfectly fine. Similarly the other supporting cast members are just as fine as well, but the focus is pretty much on Turner and his relationship with Hooch so nobody else really gets any time to develop their roles.

That and the storyline are really my only criticisms. It does feel like the case of Amos's murder and the operation at Boyett's Seafood very much plays second fiddle to the development of the relationship between Turner & Hooch, I mean, that is kind of the point: the movie is about that, but it's a bit of an after thought that is just mostly wrapped up in the last 20 minutes. Not that it wasn't enjoyable enough though and did provide the perfect background to the developing of the relationship so although I guess I'd have liked to have seen the case fleshed out and it have a bit more action, it is only really supplementary to the main plot of the Detective and his new canine buddy.

So those crits aside, nothing else really for me to moan about. It was shot pretty great with some interesting and creative cinematography and soundtracked just fine although the musical stuff was mostly pretty basic and felt a bit more like a made for TV movie than a cinematic presentation. But it fitted with the atmosphere nicely, didn't over embellish it and was more than fitting for the simple nature of the movie so that isn't necessarily a criticism.

I thought this was just a really easy watch and, as a result, I really enjoyed it. It wasn't the most thought provoking, frontier pushing movie you might ever experience and at it's essence is basically a silly movie about a man growing to love a dog. But it is always fun watching Tom Hanks at work and I am, slowly being converted into a dog person (as I might have mentioned in other posts) so it was also cool to see Hooch share a good chunk of screen time as well to be honest. I could absolutely watch this again, even knowing how it ends, and despite just being a silly comedy movie it still does what it has to do very well and is enjoyable to watch with it. A very strong 3 out of 5.