Otto - The Outer-Frisian

Otto – Der Außerfriesische; comedy, Germany, 1989; D: Marijan Vajda, Otto Waalkes, S: Otto Waalkes, Barbara May, Volkmar Kleinert

The blond Otto lives in a lighthouse in East Frisia, north Germany. He takes money from tourists and a local millionaire by selling cheap souvenirs, and here and there brings milk to a kindergarten. He is in love with the kindergarten teacher. But his region, East Frisia, is threatened by the evil multi-corporations because the rich boss wants to build a rocket route there. Otto, disguised as a waiter, reveals their plan and goes to Florida to ask help from his brother called Benno, who saves everything, and thus Otto returns to Germany. Otto gains the heart of the teacher.

The 3rd film from the mega popular five part "Otto" movie series already started to decay by showing more flaws than virtues, going hand-in-hand with the critics who characterized the series as getting worse with every new sequel. The screenplay is all over the place due to a too loose story without a clear thread, but star comedian Otto Waalkes was able to accumulate just enough good jokes for the film to conceal its overstretched tone. Some of the best gags are still very amusing: for instance, two computers are advising a sheep dog on a meadow how to catch sheep or the one with the slogan of the greedy company: "The Earth was just lent to us...but nobody said anything about giving it back". Especially well done are jokes aimed at the culture clash in a short subplot when Otto takes a trip to the United States of America—during the flight, Otto sits next to a paranoid German who warns him: "America is a terrible country! There's a murder every 21 seconds there! 120 robberies per minute!" - "But I will stay there only for a couple of hours." - "Already a second is enough to get killed! I'm not going to leave the safety of the airport!" Later, while taking the plane back to Germany, Otto meets the same man in bandaids, who tells him he was robbed on the toilet at the airport - by a Bavarian. The rest of the humor is rather silly, pale and too much centered around German culture to find universal appeal, which is why two guest appearances are welcomed: the one of tennis star Steffi Graf and comedian Loriot ("Ödipussi") in the scene where all the fans go to him, and not to Otto.

Grade:++