OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d'espions

I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it ended up as one of the audience favorites. This is a spoof on the french cottage industry of OSS 117 films of the 50's and 60's. The first OSS 117 film based on the novel by Jean Bruce was brought to the screen in 1956, long before the first James Bond film, staring Ivan Desny as Hubert Bonisseur De La Bath and six subsequent action adventure spy films were made up to 1970 with Luc Merenda, Frederick Stafford, Kerwin Matthews and John Gaven all taking turns as Oss 117. Jean Dujardin is in the title role in this comedic take on the series. As the film begins set in 1945 he has a french mustache and resembles Desny but as the film begins it's setting of 1955 he really looks like Sean Connery. Jean François Halim wrote this hilarious screenplay of a spy sent to Egypt to investigate the murder of a friend. It borrows on the silliness of Naked Gun, Get Smart and the Pink Panther and uses fresh humor on current events in a delightful combination that international audiences will enjoy and I am sure this will be the only the first of more to come of a revived OSS 117 reworked to comedy adventures. Michel Hazanavicius directs. I would give this a 7.5 and recommend it.

Jean Dujardin gets Connery's mannerisms down pat: the adjusting the cuff links when entering a club as all the women turn to admire him, the nonchalant straightening and smoothing down of the tie, the swaggering, steely gait. It's uncanny, and you come to realise just how much of Bond in the Sixties was Connery's creation and not really Ian Fleming's character.

The cinematography is a nod to those early films, the movie takes off From Russia With Love and Thunderball mainly. The main joke is how chauvinistic the hero is, not just in terms of sexism but nationalism and colonialism, and how he puts noses out of joint when he is sent to Egypt.

It's not perfect - about 20 mins in it seems a one-joke movie and bits of it remind one of spoofs of the day, of which there were plenty. Morcecambe and Wise's The Intelligence Men had suspect-looking men in fez's following their heroes around too, and that's going back a bit. Unlike Sellers' Clouseau or Baron Cohen's Borat, Dujardin doesn't give his character that layer of realness or genuine pathos - he is too busy perfecting his Connery mannerisms. It doesn't do enough with the credits or a big song, and there's no funny or serious villain, like Mike Myers' Dr Evil or Ricardo Montalban's Naked Gun nemesis, for the hero to go up against.

But the scene where OSS117 wakes up in Cairo one morning had me laughing out loud in the three-quarters empty cinema, and the whole thing looks wonderful, plus you'll never get a chance to see Operation Kid Brother on the screen, and the women are ace crumpet, really hot. It's a Bond spoof without falling into the mad scientist/Ken Adam sets or funny gadgets routine. Throughly recommended.

Seems like M.Hazanavicius is back!The man behind "la classe américaine" comes back with a really fun and clever sequel to those old-fashioned OSS-117...Whereas directors tend to "over-actualize" sequels of old classics (remember the avengers,urk), Hazanavicius chose to work on a really cheap hero, OSS-117, a kind of low-budget french 007, and decides to do it in a old-school way...The photography, the body attitudes, the fights choreography and the FX, everything is like an homage to the way films were made back in the 50s.And it works, as the tone and jokes of the movie are really good! Jean Dujardin embodies perfectly this stupid-arrogant-macho-selfish french spy, lost in a country he understands only in terms of folklore and inferiority.Yes, that's it, just the way the occident uses to consider its colonies back then (and, oh no, I won't say it has anything to do with what happens nowadays in the very same area...ah ah)...He just looks like an unfrozen Lino Ventura, with something like 40 pounds less, which is perfect for the role.The other members of the cast fit perfectly as well, with all you can dream of Russian spies, Egyptian independantists and former Nazis.And of course, the women, as there has to be "femmes fatales" in any good spy-movies... The plot is good (maybe not brilliant but really good enough...), taking place between actual historical facts, and remembering us in a funny way how France (and the others) treated its colonies back in those days. It all starts in 1955 with a British spy disappearing while tracking a Russian cargo full of weapons in Suez.Then France sends his best friend, agent OSS-117, to discover what happened to both the shipment and the agent... The fact is that this agent is really as dumb as can be, and he slips through the story without even understanding it, solving it in a very clouseau-esquire way. I have to say I had a bad feeling about the movie, as the publicity made around it was quite frightening, and as french humor tends to be quite populist and flat (forget about les bronzés 3 or camping...) but I was really surprised, and in the good way! I highly recommend it, whether you want a good parody of Bond-esquire movies (much more fun than in D.E.B.S. for example, but less skirts) or you're a fan of that genuine and candid way of filming they had back in the 5Os. Yes, that's it clever and (really!) funny, you've got the point once again Mr Hazanavicius!

OSS 117 was fun from start to finish.

It's difficult to define why one film touches or connects with you or not, and I won't try to analyze such perfect comedy, so politically incorrect that even academic papers should be dedicated to it :)!

Everything is old fashioned here, from women's clothes (sigh!), Mambo dance, the "hero singing"... ("Bambino" sounds like an Italian canzonetta sung in... arabic :)!).

Hubert is physically imposing, but dumb as hell. From all the 007s, he looks like Sean Connery, but is definitely more sympa because he's... silly, speaks his mind all the time, giggles, even has some homoerotic fantasies and there are rumours about him. In short, as an anti hero, he rocks :)! Sometimes he only raises his eyebrows or frowns, and that's all it takes to make you laugh.

Bérénice Bejo is the true queen of the film. Graceful, treacherous but with ideals. Aure Atika, to the contrary, is reduced to a femme fatale of sorts. It's surprising to see her that "sexy bomb", thou.

You just can't compare it with "Austin Powers"! I agree with Amazon's D. Hartley (Seattle, WA) on it being respectful to the genre.

Which is your favourite scene? One of my favourite scenes is the "fight of the chickens" with the masked villain. But the truly perfect one is when chatting at the cocktail with his contacts, how they all mutter platitudes with confidence... This scene alone makes the comedy genre worthwhile.

Excellent exercise on multiple plans:

• showing the not yet ended colonialism spirit in France

• more generally the boring mindset of superiority from all western people

• a renewal of the spy and thriller movies: OSS 117 is uncultured and stupid!

The good idea is that, in spite of all these messages, it is a funny film, plenty of jokes and gags, very light and sparkling.

Special mention to Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo.

Definitely worth seeing. Wonder how it will be appreciated in US?

Seems to be a success in France, so probably a next version will come.