A Man Called Otto (15)
Directed by Marc Forster
★★★★

IT IS always a worry when a superb foreign film is remade for the US and British markets just because viewers detest reading subtitles.

Something is always lost in translation resulting in an inferior work.

That was my biggest fear concerning this adaptation of the Oscar-nominated Swedish film A Man Called Ove, based on Fredrik Backman's novel.

However, despite being retold from a US viewpoint, it retains the spirit and tone of the original comedy drama.

Tom Hanks finds his inner grump to play the rude and officious, stickler-for-rules Otto. He is struggling with grief resulting from a loss of his wife and the love of his life, who he described as being the colour in his black and white life.

His attempts at suicide are thwarted by the arrival of a boisterous Hispanic family who move in across the street from him and refuse to leave him alone.

Marisol (a superb Mariana Trevino), the pregnant mother of two, keeps popping round brining Otto Mexican food, to his great annoyance.

Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) from a script by David Magee (Lady Chatterley’s Lover) this is both a humorous, uplifting yet heart-wrenching film about love, bereavement and finding the will to keep on living when your world has fallen apart.

Hanks, cast against type, delivers another standout performance, if reminiscent of Jack Lemon (Grumpy Old Men) and Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt), as the gruff and unlikeable Otto.

Hanks’s real-life son Truman Hanks plays him as a young man in only his second appearance in front of the camera.

It is a decent remake of the original film which is defintely worth seeing too.

MD
Out in cinemas from today.

Piggy (18)
Directed by Carlota Pereda
★★★★

TEENAGE fat-shaming and bullying reach horrific heights in this surreal horror from Spanish writer-director Carlota Pereda.

Extended her short by the same title, it again stars Laura Galan as Sara, an overweight teenager, whose life in a remote rural village in Extremadura is made hell by her thinner and more popular peers who shame her on social media.

During a trip to the local swimming pool, said clique of mean girls hound and torture her and take all her clothes, forcing her to walk back home in just her bikini.

It is painful to watch and poses a moral dilemma when she sees her bullies snatched by a white van man. Does she tell or not?

As a waitress and lifeguard are found dead a search for a serial killer is launched and the film takes a rather dark and twisted turn.

While very typically Spanish in terms of village life and attitudes, particularly Sara’s domineering mother (an excellent Carmen Machi) who treats her with disdain, it poses serious ethical questions and is a surprisingly insightful and thought-provoking horror film.

A must see.

MD
Out in cinemas from today.

The Enforcer (18)
Directed by Richard Hughes
★★

ANTONIO BANDERAS brings gravitas to this otherwise run-of-the-mill crime drama about an ageing cold-blooded gunman in Miami who finally takes a moral stand against his mob femme fatale boss.

Greece doubles for the Florida city as the film follows Cuda (Banderas) who befriends a teenage runaway called Billie (Zolee Griggs) as she reminds him of his estranged 15-year-old daughter Lola (Vivian Mikova).

When Billie gets abducted by the human-trafficking gang run by his employer Estelle (Kate Bosworth) Cuda goes to Billie’s rescue, putting his own life on the line.

Brutal and bloody yet slick and stylish Richard Hughes’s directorial debut feature is a predictable if enjoyable romp thanks to Banderas, who lifts the material.

I can’t help feeling they both he and Zolee Griggs deserved better.

MD
Out in cinemas from today.