A Man Named Otto

Ten Second Review: touching and heartwarming even if it is a little bloated.

Yet another film I went in blind to. I knew it was Tom Hanks and I was fairly sure of the title but other than that I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.

Otto (Tom Hanks) is a grumpy old man. He feels as though he’s reached the end of his life. He likes the order of things, he knows how things should be and he just wants people to follow the rules. When a new family move in across the street, they won’t just challenge him to come out of his shell, but to come back to life.

To get the negative out of the way, this film is a little heavy on the run time. Some awkward pacing and a little wasted time add a little extra heft to a film that would have felt better had it been fifteen minutes shorter.

Now that that’s been said, this film is very sweet. Broadly speaking there are no major surprises, it goes where you think it will and there are unlikely to be too many gasps at any stage. This doesn’t stop the story being heartwarming throughout. From understanding that this crotchety old man clearly has a lot of love in his heart to seeing how different members of a community affect him, it will have many people smiling and a few crying too I’m sure.

The ensemble is a delight but Hanks and Treviño do carry the film. They display an authenticity within their characters that make them feel like people we know. The film gets almost too saccharin at certain points but I will forgive it for how much I enjoyed these two actors playing off each other.

This isn’t going to shift the cinematic needle, and it is unlikely to make any Tom Hanks top ten lists, but it was very watchable. If you need a reminder of why we need community and how to get back to living, this will plug that hole.