{"id":56827,"date":"2023-01-16T15:30:33","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T20:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=56827"},"modified":"2023-01-16T15:30:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T20:30:39","slug":"a-man-called-otto-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2023\/01\/a-man-called-otto-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"A Man Called Otto \u2013 Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            \u201cA Man Called Otto\u201d has not been a well-marketed film. The strategy of the film\u2019s advertising seems to be, \u201cYou know how Tom Hanks usually plays likeable\/heroic characters to go along with his reputation for being a nice guy in real life? Come to this movie to get the opposite of that! See his versatility as he complains in a phony-sounding growly voice for 90% of the movie, followed by a heartwarming turnaround so sweet that most of the audience will be making the universal sign for gagging. It\u2019ll be unpleasant until it isn\u2019t!\u201d First of all, it\u2019s not like Tom Hanks has never gone grouchy before. I can watch everything from \u201cA League of Their Own\u201d to the recent \u201cNews of the World\u201d to frankly most of \u201cToy Story\u201d to see Hanks be grumpy without the movie needing to use it as a selling point. Second, if the film needs to draw that much attention to its unpleasantness, I don\u2019t want to see it. I didn\u2019t want to see \u201cA Man Called Otto,\u201d and would not have gone to see it had it not earned enough money to warrant a review. Fortunately the film worked better in one large dose than it did in several smaller ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Yes, Hanks\u2019 Otto Anderson spends most of the first act complaining. He complains that rope at the hardware store is sold by the yard and not by the foot. He complains that his neighbors don\u2019t obey simple parking and driving rules in his housing complex. He complains about a stray cat that won\u2019t leave him alone. He complains about his job forcing him to retire. He complains about a real estate company trying to force everyone out of their homes. He complains that America is dying. He\u2019s planning to beat it to the punch, hence the need for the five feet of rope\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Otto\u2019s plans keep getting interrupted, usually by neighbors who need him for something. He\u2019s handy with tools and usually willing to do a favor if it means there will be order in the world. The film never delves deeply into his mental health, though he is definitely suffering from depression following the passing of his wife and probably has either OCD or something close to it. It does dwell on his physical health \u2013 namely a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I\u2019ve heard the term before, and I had to grit my teeth every time it came up because I knew that its definition would eventually be treated as a punchline. I was right and it was just as painful as I imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The ads do get the bare bones of the story and tone right, but what they don\u2019t show is that the movie is very good at showing \u201cwhy\u201d Otto acts this way. Sometimes his complaints are completely justified, like when he gets into a fight with an antagonistic clown (Otto keeps his temper in check longer than I would have). Sometimes they\u2019re understandable because of things that have happened in Otto\u2019s past. For these scenes, the film brings in Hanks\u2019 son Truman to play a younger version of Otto. These flashbacks may interrupt the flow of the present-day story, but the movie wouldn\u2019t work without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cA Man Called Otto\u201d ultimately works because the character is more fleshed-out than the advertising makes it seem. It shouldn\u2019t be surprising, given that the role attracted an actor the caliber of Hanks, but things weren\u2019t looking promising at first. As for the character\u2019s grating voice and mannerisms, they\u2019re initially jarring, but you\u2019ll barely notice them after a while. Broad characters like Otto thrive better in two-hour movies where audiences can warm up to them than in spaced-out trailers and commercials where they can be jarring every time. Just like Otto himself, the performance and the movie require some patience, but they shouldn\u2019t be written off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Man Called Otto\u201d is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving suicide attempts, and language. Its running time is 126 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             \u201cA Man Called Otto\u201d has not been a well-marketed film. The strategy of the film\u2019s advertising seems to be, \u201cYou know how Tom Hanks usually plays… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":56829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2074],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56831,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56827\/revisions\/56831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}