Tom Hanks. The man voted to be the most trustworthy man in America. If the World War III phone was by his bedside, the country could rest easy. Finding someone who actively dislikes Tom Hanks would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Err, then again….the late Gene Siskel in his review of ‘Bachelor Party’ called him “smug” and “unfunny”. Outside of that wildly controversial opinion, most people are in consensus that Hanks is a national treasure. But his string of powerhouse award winners wasn’t the wellspring from once he spawned.

In 1985, Hanks had concluded his screwball, transvestite run on “Bosom Buddies” and he was considered a comedic actor after ‘Splash’, ‘The Man with One Red Shoe’ and ‘Bachelor Party’. Before he earned respectability in the early 90’s, he was still jogging through consecutive farces. One of which is the subject of this article and one that isn’t fondly reminisced about. However, I’ll contend that it supersedes its middling plot with rat-a-tat zingers, side-splitting jabs at elitism versus philanthropy and chortling spoofs of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’.

If Siskel was referring to Hanks’ role as Lawrence Bourne III as smarmy and arrogant, that’s the intent. This isn’t the amiable Hanks we’re accustom to today. He’s a cavalier degenerate with a gambling vice and weakness for female seduction. In fact, Hanks’ innovation is a bourgeoisie Maine accent. He might as well be smoking a pipe by the fireplace while reading Forbes. However, as self-aggrandizing as Bourne is, Hanks can sling a droll, Catskills one-liner (To the thug about to pulverize him at graduation – “Please don’t leave. I want you to sign my yearbook.”) and he eventually thaws into an altruistic individual.

Director Nicholas Meyers isn’t lionized for his farcical wavelength and he doesn’t revolutionize the genre but he widens his scope for the actor’s buffoonery to play magnificently. He evens juggles back and forth between satire and outright parody (a superimposed map during a car chase results in Bourne piercing through a physical copy of it).

‘Volunteers’ also reteams Hanks with his ‘Splash’ co-star John Candy as the alliterative Tom Tuttle from Tacoma. At this point, Candy was polishing his loquacious-motormouth shtick (perfected by ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’) and he bounces off of Hanks’ dry wit supremely. One milestone for Hanks in this film is that it introduced him to his future bride Rita Wilson and their chemistry oozes from the screen even if their meet-cute on the plane finishes with a slap to the face of the chauvinistic Laurence.

Before he was a topic of idolatry, Hanks was an undeniably accomplished comic thespian. Only Hanks could be condescending about the Thailand natives not recognizing a hair comb and still deliver a chuckle. To this end, ‘Volunteers’ is vintage Hanks frivolity sans the Oscar buzz, it’s snappy and slaughters some sacred cows about the Peace Corps and who it attracts.

Before 21 and 22 Jump Street popularized the gimmick of updating dated, melodramatic television shows of yore into self-effacing, comedic ore, 1987 gave us a skewering of the 1950’s police procedural Dragnet. Since the template was relatively novel, I can imagine nostalgic Baby Boomers being apoplectic about their beloved crime drama being “bastardized” into a big-screen spoof.

However, unlike McHale’s Navy and CHIPs, director Tom Mankiewicz isn’t disdainful towards its forefather. In fact, the presence of Harry Morgan (from the original series) as Captain Bill Gannon is an implicit seal of approval for this affectionate, endearingly zany incarnation. He might be the most insolent with the as his eyes rolls whenever Akyroyd is sanctimonious about the detective’s debt to the citizens.

With the monotone, celeriac cadence of an auctioneer, Dan Aykroyd is the heir apparent to his uncle Joe Friday’s obedience to the enforcement in the Robbery Homicide division (“Even in the city of angels, some halos slip.”). He drives 8 miles slower on the highway in order to not splurge the taxpayer’s money. Aykroyd is never less than inspired casting in the role. Perhaps his Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis aided in his retention of reciting county penal codes.

Ira Newborn’s remixed-rap title sequence almost fetishizes the fascist badge of the law as if this were Dredd A.D. The opening narrator lampoons the cliche that they’ve “changed the names to protect the innocence” by unintentionally revealing the actual names. As for Tom Hanks, while he is the more liberal and rubber-faced of the pair, he garners less laughs than Aykroyd’s deadpan shtick. Of course, this was before Hanks transitioned from the sardonic ne’er-do-well of raunchy comedies to bankable A-lister.

Upon revisiting Dragnet, it has aged remarkably well. In my youth, the movie seemed redundant on a one-joke premise (the manifold Village People disguises of the twosome) and Dabney Coleman’s lispy performance has only ameliorated from a mannered tic to a rib-tickling Looney Tunes cartoon. While Hanks is a glorified second banana (whose sole purpose is caustic asides and scribbling notes), Dragnet is not far afield from the tomfoolery of The Naked Gun.

Dragnet treads on a beam where it could topple into candy-coated irreverence during the P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness and Normalcy) ceremony but this is actually the film’s kamikaze crown jewel. The clues of an anaconda-sized reptile, a missing wedding dress and a virgin all zigzag and converge into a screwball set piece with Hanks and Aykroyd jocosely wrangling the animatronic snake with hallucinogenic drugs.

Unfortunately this should’ve been the film’s climax as it regains an equivalent level of offbeat momentum afterwards. Despite that, Aykroyd singlehandedly gentrifies the movie above the inferior last act. Just the subtly square-jawed sight gag of Aykroyd’s mild consternation over flashing breasts is worthy of giving Dragnet another spin.