Tom Hanks had to pull out all the stops prevent that wonderfully funny slobbering French mastiff from stealing the entire film Turner&Hooch. After all the two were equally top billed and should have had an equal share of the laughs.

Turner&Hooch has Hanks as small town police detective Scott Turner who is moving to an unnamed big city because he wants more challenging police work. But he gets himself an unsolved homicide in the last week on his job. The victim is John McIntire in what was his farewell performance as an old man who lived on a shack at the docks of the small coastal town. McIntire had been complaining about strange goings on at a nearby fish cannery and when someone is murdered there McIntire is also silenced.

The only witness is McIntire's dog Hooch and Hanks saves him from being put down as he's the closest thing to a witness he has. But this dog who lived in that waterfront shack where McIntire didn't exactly house break him proves to be quite a handful.

There's no way you couldn't love that big goofy dog. But I sure wouldn't want him for mine. There's a reason I'm a cat person. Hanks who's a pretty funny guy himself has some wonderful scenes with the dog. But he proves to be quite the chick magnet as well because of the interest veterinarian Mare Winningham shows in Hanks.

This one scored big at the box office in 1989. It still a very funny and heart warming film for audiences of all ages.

TURNER & HOOCH is a buddy-buddy comedy of the 1980s with a twist: one of the cops is in actuality a dog, the only witness to a murder that saw his owner killed. He teams up with cynical OCD cop Tom Hanks to track down the villains responsible, but he's the kind of dog that takes a lot of getting used to. This came out around the same time as, and is very similar to, K9, but I think it has the edge. It's moving without being sentimental, and the dog gets an absolute ton of screen time, making him very much the focus of the film; excellent he is too.

Scott Turner (Tom Hanks) is a beloved obsessively-organized neat-freak in a small seaside town. He's training David Sutton to be his replacement as police investigator before he leaves for a bigger job in Sacramento. A package of cash is found at the docks. Later local Amos Reed is killed by thugs. Turner takes in his friend's unmanageable dog Hooch. Police chief Howard Hyde (Craig T. Nelson) reluctantly allows the short-timer to investigate. Hooch is his only witness. Dr. Emily Carson (Mare Winningham) treats the dog and falls for Turner.

Tom Hanks is undeniably charming. He could work in a buddy cop movie. However this is not funny. Although I won't dismiss anybody who likes this. This is Beethoven with Hanks in his underwear at odds with the dog. There's also a serious police investigation. It just never seemed funny to me.