User Reviews

"Otto - Der Außerfriesische" is the third installment in the successful Otto Waalkes movie series. This time, love is only the secondary factor in the plot as it is all about Otto finding his brother to protect his twin brother's lighthouse (and environment) from being destroyed by greedy property sharks. The film came out in 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, 2 years after the second Otto film and 4 years after the first. the cast is okay. We see a cameo from Loriot (Vicco von Bülow), one of Germany's most famous comedian at that point just like Waalkes, and also from one of the actresses from Loriot movies. The very young Christine Neubauer is featured too. The film has many word plays again, such as "Gewohnheizrecht" (sorry, that pun is not possible to translate). These are probably fairly difficult to translate, as there are so many and most of them so specific.

The film's director is Marijan David Vajda. Surprising to see they went with somebody who has not directed before instead of Schwarzenberger, who directed the first two Otto films. Otto himself is co-director, however, again and the writer team also stayed the same. A big part of the film plays in the United States this time, where Otto is looking for his brother (and finding many gangsters on his way). So there is many American humor included as well, such as Knight Rider references or LOTS (almost too much) of American language translation humor. I have to say it got slightly repetitive at times. Maybe they were trying to conquer the American cinema market now too, after the first two films were massive commercial successes in Germany. The dream sequence was pretty funny with the knife to his throat and it was pretty refreshing to see young German tennis player Steffi Graf included. he was already number one in the world when this was made, only at the age of 20. Then there is some fraternal rivalry parts (also romantically related with their respective girlfriends), which was not too impactful though, but it's fine I guess. After all, it is just a comedy.

People easily offended may not find the Black jokes funny (black also refers to a German party and they are described as criminal at one point), but I liked it a lot. Very politically incorrect. In the truest sense of the word and exactly my cup of tea in terms of humor. In terms of humor, apart from this one scene, the film is fairly harmless, almost sort of likable. All in all, I recommend watching this movie. The German poster says something about Otto like "How can you not like him" and I completely agree. Also, just like for all the other films, it is not necessary at all to have watched the previous installments to understand what is going on.