When his father, Lawrence Bourne Jr., refuses to pay his debt, he escapes his angry creditors by trading places with his college roommate Kent, jumping on a Peace Corps flight to Thailand.

On the plane, he meets Washington State graduate Tom Tuttle from Tacoma, and the beautiful, down-to-earth Beth Wexler, the latter rejecting his advances once realizing why he is really there.

Lawrence befriends At Toon, teaching him and several other villagers various gambling card games, but they are met by the powerful drug lord Chung Mee, who forces them to finish the bridge quickly.

[3] The filmmakers built a Thai village based on the Karen people of Burma's Golden Triangle, building the world's longest wooden suspension bridge, which was more than 250 yd (230 m) long.

[7] The film spoofs a number of David Lean epics, including Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai, with the Washington State University Fight Song used in place of the "Colonel Bogey March".

"[10] Conversely, Variety called it "a very broad and mostly flat comedy", and wrote, "Toplined Tom Hanks gets in a few good zingers as an upperclass snob doing time in Thailand, but promising premise and opening shortly descend into unduly protracted tedium.