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| “ | Because those little rats stole something very important from me. AND NOBODY STEALS FROM OCIOUS P. POTTER!!!! | „ |
| ~ Potter about the Borrowers who snatched the will from him. |
| “ | You find those Borrowers, or I'll make sure you never kill in this town again! | „ |
| ~ Potter threatening the exterminator Jeff. |
| “ | And that'll teach you to mess with Ocious P. Potter. | „ |
| ~ Potter stealing the will back from the Clock family again. |
Ocious P. Potter is the main antagonist of the 1997 film adaptation of The Borrowers. He is an arrogant, greedy and crooked real estate lawyer who wants to destroy the Lender family's house and build luxury apartments in its place. He is also the archenemy of Pete Lender and the Borrowers.
He was portrayed by John Goodman, who also played Big Dan Teague from O Brother Where Art Thou, George Wolfsbottom in Clifford's Really Big Movie, Chuck Long from Evan Almighty, Bones Darley from Death Sentence, Marshall from The Hangover, Howard Stambler from 10 Cloverfield Lane, Layton T. Montgomery from Bee Movie, and Karl "Madman" Mundt from Barton Fink.
Personality[]
Ocious P. Potter is best described as greedy, pompous, selfish, cruel, arrogant, nasty, thieving, cheating, evil, vicious, careless, and deceitful. He wants to build apartments on the Lenders' property and doesn't care if the Lenders suffer from it. When he discovers the secret home of the Borrowers, he is determined to get rid of them by all means necessary. He is also very conniving as he was able to locate the will inside the walls of the Lender house.
He has been known to display some narcissistic traits, taking great pride in his appearance as shown when he seems rather sensitive about his looks and obviously distressed after losing his moustache and having his face burnt sun red in an accident with Jeff's acidic foam sprayer later on and especially, when the Borrowers refer to him as "ugly", "Pizza Face", and "Fatso".
Potter is definitely not a patient man, which is proven several points during the film. One example is when he demands the demolition to be scheduled immediately, regardless of short notices or anything else on their schedule. He also abuses the local exterminator, Jeff for his short attention span, insults the local policeman, Officer Steady to get him to leave him alone, and constantly refers to his own driver as "cue ball" (due to his baldness) even when he's in a hurry to reach City Hall and initiate the Lenders' house's demolition as soon as possible. Potter's rudeness does prove to bite him when he demands the town hall receptionist to direct him to demolition, and she gives him complicated directions as payback.
All in all, Potter is a corrupt attorney who will do things by hook or by crook to get what exactly he wants and doesn't care what he has to do to get it or who gets in his way.
Appearance[]
Ociouis appears to be an overweight lawyer. At first, he starts off with a moustache and well-combed hair wearing a well-distinguished businessman suit. Throughout the movie, Ocious loses his moustache after an accident with Jeff's acidic foam sprayer; leaving him with a sunburnt red face, his hair gets messed up when stuck straight up after a little mishap with a light bulb and electrocution, and finally, he ends up covered with cheese all over him even after his defeat.
History[]
Proir to the movie's events, Ocious P. Potter started out as the lawyer of one Mrs. Mary Belinda Alabaster before becoming the latter's family, the Lenders: Joe and Victoria's (Mrs. Alabaster's niece) new lawyer after her death at some point.
Recently, the Lenders have inherited Victoria's late aunt's house, but when the property lease is being called into question whether they own the house or not, they state that her late aunt wrote a will that will prove their rightful, legal, and official ownership. However, Mr. Potter seemingly states that he can't find the will anywhere and has already made plans to demolish their house in order to build 24 highly expensive condominiums on the land, and the Lenders including their only son, Pete have until Saturday to move away.
As Saturday hits by, the Lenders have moved away and Potter arrives at the now-empty house in his own Morris Oxford Stretch limousine driven by his own driver. It later turns out that Mrs. Alabaster never trusted banks and has, in fact, hidden the will inside the house for her family to find along with enough money to maintain the property, something which Potter deliberately kept from his clients in order to get exactly what he wants in the end without remorse even if it meant having to make a false promise to his late client, Mrs. Alabaster herself about ensuring that her family will acquire the property eventually after her death. As soon as he finds the will (detailing the rightful, legal, and official ownership to the Lenders) inside a safe hidden behind a wall, Potter calls up City Hall to call in the demolition of the house despite the short notice. He then tries in vain to burn the will first with his now-faulty lighter and later, matches he finds in a drawer, but Arrietty Clock (the protagonist of the film) and her brother, Peagreen, two tiny people known as "Borrowers" as they borrow stuff without being seen, recover the will as they intend to save the house for both their family and the Lenders. Upon discovering the Clocks' underground home and believing that the house is infested, Potter calls in the local exterminator, Jeff, who sprays acidic foam into the wall, but Arrietty and Peagreen escape from it. An impatient Potter asks Jeff how long will his job take, which startles Jeff so much that he accidentally sprays foam on Potter's face. Potter screams in pain as it boils and bubbles on him. Jeff quickly removes the foam off of Potter's face--though Potter loses his moustache in the process and his face is now left sunburnt red.
Potter then finds Arrietty and Peagreen in the walls of the house and has Jeff swing a hammer at the wall after deliberately destroying part of the latter's foam machine to avoid anymore accidents and without any concern for the damage cost either. Peagreen gets stuck on the claw of the hammer and is pulled out from the wall and flung across the room. He lands on a hanging light bulb and Potter tries to get him, but can't reach. After Potter tells Jeff to turn the power on, he swings the hammer at the lightbulb just as Peagreen manages to escape with Arrietty's help, leaving Potter electrocuted with his hair sticking straight up until he tells Jeff to turn the power off. Then, Potter falls to the floor, and the hammer falls and hits him on the head off-screen.
After recuperating from his shock, Potter demands Jeff to find the Borrowers or he will face dismissal from his job. Jeff then introduces Potter to his bloodhound, Mr. Smelly to sniff Peagreen's jacket and track down the scent to a milk factory, where Peagreen is stuck inside a milk bottle after a certain mishap.
On the way, Potter and Jeff occasionally bump into the local policeman, Officer Steady, who starts to question Potter's actions regarding the Lender house and later, gives him some cream for his burnt face. Around the same time, Jeff starts to question Potter's intention of killing the Borrowers after seeing how capable they are, resulting in Potter breaking off with him just as he is doused with liquid cheese by Arrietty and another Borrower named Spud Spiller. As soon as Peagreen is saved by his family, Potter finally arrives at the scene, steals the will, and straps the 5 Borrowers to the cheese machine, intending to drown them in liquid cheese as revenge for humiliating him. Spiller then deliberately insults Potter up to a point where Potter decides to dump him into another machine instead, apparently killing him. After leaving the Borrowers to their apparent fate, Potter heads over to City Hall to file for demolition, but not before he taunts Pete Lender, who is actually a recent close friend of the Clock family having come to rescue them while confronting the former over his misdeeds at the same time, that his little friends are about to be drowned in liquid cheese and later, unintentionally destroys the latter's bicycle with his own car.
As soon as Potter leaves for City Hall, Pete saves the Clocks from being drowned in liquid cheese, and they head over to City Hall (with help from Jeff, who lends in his van to drive Pete there while the Clocks precede them using Spiller's expressway transportation). As soon as Potter reaches City Hall, he is briefly stalled by the receptionist, who gives him confusing directions to the demolition area in response to his rude behavior. Just as he finally reaches the room, Jeff and Pete arrive to stop him. Potter responds by sending them both down the elevator before going into the room, only to find out that it's just a supply room (Jeff having deliberately misplaced the "Demolition" sign on the front of the door earlier) where the Clocks lock Potter in, make him trip after tying his shoelaces together, poke his rear with a pin, burn his eyes with fly killer spray, and finally, stick him with electrical tape. Out of rage, Potter breaks away from the tape and traps the Borrowers in a bin, intending to suck them up with a vacuum cleaner for good. However, Spiller (apparently having escaped the machine earlier) arrives just in time with an entire army of Borrowers to the rescue, who trap Potter using wires and the ceiling fan. Then, when thousands of more Borrowers make themselves known to everyone else, Arrietty's father, Pod delivers a speech to Potter on behalf of the entire Borrower community, right before they leave as soon as the door opens. Pete, Jeff, and Officer Steady have arrived at the scene, where Pete recovers the will and shows it to Steady, proving Potter's deceit and his plan to cheat the Lenders out of their house. Having gone crazy about the Borrowers, Potter tries to explain his story, but an unconvinced Steady arrests him for fraud and theft.
With Potter's plans exposed, the Lenders move back to their own house and Pete remains friends with the Borrowers while keeping their existence a secret. It is also implied that the Lenders are likely to sue Potter for the deceit and fraud that he had committed against them.
During the end credits, Potter is seen at the police station trying to explain the existence of the Borrowers to Steady, only to be laughed uproariously at by both Steady, the entire police force, and even the convicts. The film closes with Potter's mugshots being taken, though he actually seems to enjoy it as if he were at a photography studio (most likely due to his sanity slipping from all he's been through in one day). It can also be implied afterwards that Potter himself is disbarred from his job and sentenced to either prison or a mental asylum for his crimes against the Lenders and his Borrower stories.
Trivia[]
- The letter "P" in Potter's name is never mentioned what it really stands for throughout the whole movie.