This is a comedy, but not a spoof. Spy, that I watched last week, was a spoof. It was character-driven — really just an excuse for Melissa McCarthy to be (very) funny. You could have dropped her into anything else and it would have worked the same.
But The Man with One Red Shoe is a comedy, driven far more by story than characters. The spy angle of the plot is what makes it work.
It’s an early role for Tom Hanks. He plays a violinist from Washington DC who’s mistakenly identified as a witness who will testify against Dabney Colman’s corrupt CIA executive. Colman’s team of spies is trying to investigate and neutralize him, while another team is trying to protect him. Both sides are working against each other, while Hanks’s character stays largely oblivious (he’s not actually what anyone thinks he is).
There are some great performances here — Colman has never been better — but it’s a genuinely inventive and interesting story that results in some unique situations. There’s a funny subplot involving Jim Belushi going slightly crazy after unwittingly witnessing several espionage-related events.
And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the line that has for some reason become iconic in a circle of me and a couple friends:
Does anyone here remember how to kill a man?
I don’t know why that’s funny, but it is.