Until its grossly miscalculated bummer of an ending, Turner & Hooch is a routine but amiable cop-and-dog comedy enlivened by the charm of Tom Hanks and his homely-as-sin canine partner.
Hanks plays a fussy smalltown California police investigator whose life is disreputed by a messy junkyard dog with a face only a furry mother could love.
In the numbingly unoriginal plot [by Dennis Shryack and Michael Blodgett], the dog named Hooch (delightfully played by Beasley), witnesses a double murder and is Hanks’ only means of catching the drug smugglers responsible for the slayings. The rather mechanical style of director Roger Spottiwoode (who took over the film after original director Henry Winkler departed) fails to enliven the stereotypical criminal proceedings.
