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Movie reviews: 'A Man Called Otto' is predictable, but elevated

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Tom Hanks in a scene from 'A Man Called Otto.' (Niko Tavernise/Sony Pictures via AP)  This image released by Sony Pictures shows Tom Hanks in a scene from 'A Man Called Otto.' (Niko Tavernise/Sony Pictures via AP) 
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A MAN CALLED OTTO: 3 STARS

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Tom Hanks, left, in a scene from 'A Man Called Otto.' (Niko Tavernise/Sony Pictures via AP) 

No one can play unlikable-with-a-hidden-heart-of-gold like Tom Hanks.

Now in theatres, “A Man Called Otto,” is a sentimental mean-old-man redemption movie that showcases the actor’s ability to transcend even the most predictable material.

When we first meet Otto Anderson (Hanks) he is the epitome of a grumpy old man. Recently retired, he spends his days making sure his neighbours in their suburban Pittsburgh, Penn., cul-de-sac obey community rules.

According to Otto, his neighbours are idiots who don’t recycle properly and never display their parking passes.

“The whole neighbourhood is falling apart these days,” he grumbles.

The recent passing of his life-long love, wife Sonya (Rachel Keller), has made him bitter, angry at the world.

“Nothing works,” he says at her grave site, “now that you’re gone.”

Lost and despondent, he makes several attempts to take his own life and join Sonya in the afterworld, but is interrupted by circumstance or the loud knocking on his front door by his new neighbours, a young, vivacious Mexican-American family – parents Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and their adorable kids.

With new life on the street, Otto slowly lets his guard down, opening up to the possibility of living life without Sonya.

A mix of sadness and hope, of tears tempered by laughs, the path of "A Man Called Otto" is predictable, but elevated by its two central performances.

As Otto, Hanks is a man damaged by life. Hard knocks have dented him, tamping down his true nature. What is left is a hard shell dinged by circumstance, but rather than go full-grump, Hanks allows his softer side to seep through. That’s the thing that makes Otto human and not a caricature, and Hanks’ well-established nice-guy reputation goes a long way to keeping us on Otto’s side.

The film’s beating heart, however, is Treviño as Marisol. As a counterbalance to Ottos’s curmudgeonly behaviour, she is empathy and kindness personified. She radiates warmth, and eventually melts Otto’s icy façade.

“A Man Called Otto,” a remake of the Swedish film “A Man Called Ove,” from director Hannes Holm, is a tear-jerking story of redemption that tries a bit too hard to strum the heartstrings but, thanks to the performances, still manages to find resonate, emotional moments.

PLANE: 2 STARS

This image released by Lionsgate shows Mike Colter in a scene from 'Plane.' (Kenneth Rexach/Lionsgate via AP) 

As if flying in real life wasn’t bad enough these days, along comes “Plane,” a new Gerard Butler resourceful hero movie that brings the experience of a terrible flight to your local theatre.

The story begins on New Year’s Eve aboard the half empty Trailblazer Flight 119.

Butler is Brodie Torrance, a widowed pilot with a far-away look in his eye and a daughter in Hawaii he doesn’t see often enough.

In the cabin are the usual assortment of B-movie types, the hot-headed American, giggling teens posting on social media, the brash Brit and, of course, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), an accused murderer being extradited to face trial.

When a lightning strike forces a crash landing on Jolo, a remote Philippine island run by heavily armed anti-government militias, Torrance must pull out all the stops to save his passengers.

Meanwhile, at Trailblazer’s New York headquarters, a crisis management team lead by the tough-as-nails David Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn) manages the situation from afar.

As action movies go, even with the relatively low expectations that come from an action film with Butler’s name above the title, “Plane” is about as bland as airline food. From its blunt, one word title and one-dimensional characters, to its clumsy action scenes and Ed Wood-style “toy airplane in flight” sequences, the Jean-François Richet-directed, so-called thriller fails to take flight.

Butler does what he can, grimacing and occasionally flashing the charisma that made him a star in the first place, while spitting out trademarked action movie dialogue.

“That’s your plan?” asks one of the passengers after Torrance details a risky move.

“Do you have a better one?” he replies, echoing a thousand action stars that came before him.

Worse than that, Richet and screenwriters Charles Cumming and J. P. Davis don’t trust the audience. It’s not enough to show the lightning strike and the havoc it creates. We must also be told that the plane was hit with “enough juice to light a city.”

We know. We just saw it. How about giving us new information or, failing that, interesting dialogue?

If there were still DVD delete bins at the local video store, “Plane” would be gathering dust at the bottom of the barrel.

“Plane” feels like being stuck in the middle seat on a long flight.

 

DOOR MOUSE: 3 STARS

Echoes of 1980s indie film noir run deep throughout “Door Mouse,” a new, gritty mystery thriller starring Vancouver’s Hayley Law as a burlesque performer on a quest for justice.

Law is Mouse, a chain-smoking part-time comic book creator and full-time dancer at a seedy burlesque club run by the tough-as-nails Mama (Famke Janssen).

When some of her friends and fellow dancers go missing – one snatched from her home, another abducted, pushed into a limo never to be seen again – the police are apathetic, unable or unwilling to investigate the disappearance of “girls no one will miss.”

Looking for answers. Mouse recruits her friend Ugly (Keith Powers) to delve into the dark, sordid world of drug dealers, kidnapping and sex trafficking, where vulnerable women are sold to “rich and powerful monsters.”

“These are dangerous questions you’re asking Mouse,” warns a sleazy club owner. “If you don’t want to crash, stay in your lane.”

“Door Mouse” has style to burn. Actor-turned-director Avan Jogia wrings every dime out of his low budget, utilizing eye-catching camera angles, animation, an abrasive “wake ‘em up” soundtrack and music cues to create a film with comic book noir aesthetic that owes a debt to '80s noirs like “Blood Simple” and cult hits like “Repo Man.”

The high style suits the story’s underworld backdrop, creating an uneasy atmosphere for Jogia’s morality play.

Populated by uneasy and often corrupt characters, “Door Mouse” boils down to a simple story of good vs. evil, of predators vs. prey.

Jogia, who also wrote the script, belabours the point with dialogue that is often as melodramatic as the film is stylish.

Lines like “You can only crawl on the ground so long before the dirt starts sticking to you” sound ripped from an over-written soap opera script. Imagine the relish that Susan Lucci could have applied to those words.

In this context, however, those dialogue flourishes feel unnecessarily theatrical.

The film's stylized look at power dynamics, filtered through a genre lens, is compelling to a point, but bludgeons its central point, that it's better to die with the sheep than eat sheep with the wolves, to the point of redundancy.

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