Otto - Der Katastrofenfilm (2000)

The film is divided into a framing story and an inner story. In the framing story, the protagonist Otto sits on a park bench in New York’s Central Park, telling curious tourists the story of his life. It is summarized below. Otto is born in a barn, the son of a vagrant. His parents set him adrift in a wicker basket, and he drifts through East Frisian canals and drainage ditches. An old fisherman eventually finds him and takes him in at his home, a rustic hut by the Pilsum Lighthouse. The old man raises Otto, sometimes using highly questionable methods. He also tells his “grandson” that he was a famous sailor and once captained the great ocean liner Queen Henry. As an adult, Otto leads a quiet life. He earns a living delivering milk and guiding visitors across the mudflats in Greetsiel, and composes pieces of music hostile to tourists. One day, his “grandfather” dies and confesses on his deathbed that he was never a real captain. After the funeral, Otto sets off by train for “Hamburch.” There he takes a sailor’s examination in hopes of getting aboard the Queen Henry, which is docked in Hamburg harbor, ready to sail for New York City. However, he is judged unsuitable and has to find another way: he disguises himself as a woman and successfully passes himself off as a new member of the pop band Old Speis Görls. At the same time, the ship, which belongs to the Japanese owner Manimaka San (a play on the English “money maker”), is insured for 300 percent of its value with a German insurance company, on the pretext that it is carrying valuable cargo. The Japanese plan to sink the ship with a bomb and collect the insurance payout. To do this, they send an assassin aboard. The head of the insurance company is suspicious, however, and assigns the agent Sonja to go aboard and prevent a possible attack. Interpol investigators are looking for the assassin and mistake Otto for him. Two undercover investigators set off on the voyage. Fleeing from them, Otto takes on various disguises during the voyage, including as a cook and a priest. In the process, he saves the penguin Max from ending up in the soup pot and grows increasingly close to the attractive Sonja throughout the journey. Eventually, stowaway Otto is caught and tied up in the cargo hold beside a coffin intended for burial at sea. During the night, the assassin sneaks down and arms the bomb hidden in the coffin. Otto nevertheless manages to secure his release and hurls the bomb overboard. It lands right beside the assassin, who is escaping in an inflatable dinghy, and explodes. The entire crew, apparently informed by Manimaka San, has abandoned ship in a lifeboat, expecting the Queen Henry to sink, leaving the ship without anyone at the helm. Otto therefore takes over the vacant bridge and, by sheer coincidence, reaches the voyage’s destination, New York. He wants to fulfill his “grandfather’s” dream and steer the ship into New York harbor. Just before arriving, however, he realizes that they are going too fast, and the steering wheel can no longer be turned. A little later, the Queen Henry slides onto Liberty Island, where mass panic has already broken out, and rams the Statue of Liberty. The statue then collapses in on itself. In the end credits, Otto and Sonja, who has by then told him about her work and quit her employer, set off into a future together.