A man named Otto (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) continues the current run of Tom Hanks performances Minor, which began a few years ago with the naval war thriller. Greyhound and continued through the West News of the Worldthe disarmaments Hoe-esque Finchhis annoying OTT turns Elvis and damn it Pinocchio “live action” remake. Otto – grossing $100 million at the global box office – finds him playing a character you might recognize as people who don’t accept subtitles, as the film is an Americanized remake of the 2015 Swedish dark comedy A man named Ove, about an aggressive grump of a lonely old man whose repeated attempts to break free usually fail. What Hanks, a true cinematic treasure, does with the role is… well, more disappointing than anything else.
The gist: Otto (Hanks) can’t believe he has to pay for two yards of rope to hang himself when he only needs five feet. And don’t even GET him started on the eye hook rigging that pokes through his roof – it won’t even support the weight of a grown man long enough for someone to properly strangle themselves with a noose. Oh well. Since Otto isn’t dead, he might as well go about his usual routine of flouting every little rule and ordinance of the condo complex, you know, your bike goes here and no here, who the hell keeps putting metal in the recycling bin for plastic, who leaves the gate open, and while we’re at it, let’s not be nice to the loving stray cat that hangs around the neighborhood. “Idiots” is something he grumbles under his breath constantly. He’s just unwittingly ‘retired’ from the job he’s had for billions of years – his co-workers seem to enjoy putting a knife to the photo of his face rendered as frosting on top of his farewell cake – and he’s lying in bed next to an obvious point blank that tells us HELLO POOR MAN THE A-HOLE’S WIFE IS DEAD SO MAYBE CUT HIM SOME SNAP. Even though it’s obviously never crossed his mind to cut anyone any slack. When he goes low, we go high, right?
However, there is no slack in this noose rope. He is about to enter when such a bang is heard from the other side of the street. It’s his new neighbors who are moving in and can’t park the damn U-Haul trailer: Idiots. He parks it to them because if you want something done right you have to do it yourself and everyone is stupid but Otto and he doesn’t suffer from stupid, which is the rest of the population, because he is the only one on the whole dadgum planet who is not stupid. The new neighbors are led by Marisol (Mariana Treviño), a happy mom of two girls with another baby on the way and a dope of a husband (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) who can’t do anything without breaking something. including his bones. These people could really use a friend who knows how to do things, but hey, Otto’s level of pragmatism is a little, shall we say, unnecessary.
Otto visits his wife’s grave and flashes back to when he met Sonya (Rachel Keller), an angel of a person who was completely flawless, or maybe not, because one wonders if her ability to nurture the type of wild ape that Otto is becoming was really , a flaw. (Notably, Hanks’ son Truman Hanks plays young Otto.) Marisol feeds Otto delicious food and begins chipping away at his veneer. She needs driving lessons, and if someone who isn’t an A-grade moron is going to teach her, the only choice is Otto, who might have a sense or two down there that he’ll actually almost share. Meanwhile, he takes care of her girls, starts to get along a little better with his other wacky neighbors – even some of the less wacky ones – and maybe this cat isn’t so bad after all. Also, in the meantime, we get a subplot about a bad real estate company that feels completely foreign, but at least Otto has something else to deal with.
What movies will it remind you of?: Otto is by Carl Fredriksen Above crossed Napoleon Dynamite (“Idiots!”) with Ebenezer Scrooge and Marisol is similar to Sally Hawkins’ character Poppy from Happy-Go-Luckybecause she’s pretty much relentless and she also doesn’t know how to drive.
Performance worth watching: We moved away from Otto believing that we probably don’t need to see Hanks play another softball character like him (it’s kind of anti-Mr. Rogers), and also believing that we need to see Treviño—who lights up the screen with her presence—in many more things.
Memorable dialogue: Otto finds somewhere in himself to say this to Marisol: “You have given birth to two children. Soon there will be three. You came here from a land far away. You learned a new language, you got an education and a husband, and you’re holding this family together. You will have no problem learning to drive. God, the world is full of idiots who have figured it out, and you’re not a total idiot.”
Gender and skin: No one.
Our Acceptance: A man named Otto is mechanically engineered for maximum tear extraction. grouch meets pollyanna, and something has to give, and this is the kind of movie where you know where it’s going to go, possibly even before you watch it. The reason Otto is the way he is? Well, no spoilers, but it’s bland and predictable, leading to an aggravating, ironic twist and a straightforward, noncommittal resolution. More disturbing is how the film treats suicide as a plot point, either to give us a darkly comic laugh or to make us feel sorry for Otto. it’s simplistic, bordering on unpleasant. I didn’t like it, despite director Marc Forster’s attempt to tone it down so it’s bland and easy to consume.
Treviño works hard to be the film’s saving grace, but I’m not sure he’s worth saving. As for Otto’s character, he seems tailor-made to plug into the Hanks algorithm so he can carry out the orders of a schmaltz-filled script that’s overloaded with subplots and characters, and rather jejune in its approach to the sensitive emotional content. Which is not to say that Hanks is bad. seeing him inhabit a cartoon like Otto can be fun, and he enjoys the occasional exchange with Treviño that strikes a chord of truth. But when the script is so weak, it forces even a passionate superstar actor to play little more than a caricature.
Our call: WAIT FOR IT. A man named Otto it’s watchable at best, tone deaf at worst.
John Sherba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
