Volunteers

Comic romp in which a spoilt playboy gambler joins the Peace Corps in Thailand to avoid his creditors, but then finds himself embroiled with local black marketeers and the CIA., Tom Hanks and John Candy were reunited for the first time since Splash in this period comedy about Peace Corps worker during the optimistic period of the Kennedy presidency. Lawrence Bourne III (Tom Hanks) is an upper-class heel who has to flee the country to escape his gambling debts and so sneaks aboard an airplane filled with Peace Corps volunteers en route to Thailand. On the plane he is befriended by well-meaning Peace Corps worker Tom Tuttle (John Candy). Once in Thailand, the workers become involved with building a bridge, and Lawrence becomes involved with the local Communists, an opium lord, and the CIA., A rich kid joins the Peace Corps to escape debt collectors and befriends a virtuous volunteer during a mission to Thailand. Later, the mismatched duo and a female enlistee work together to build a bridge. But guerrillas and black marketeers interfere.