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OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
Produced by Eric Altmayer & Nicolas Altmayer
Written by Hazanavicius & Jean-François Halin, based on the OSS 117 novels by Jean Bruce
France. 99 min. Not Rated
With Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Béjo, Aure Atika, Philippe Lefèbvre & Constantin Alexandrov

It’s good to know that Americans aren’t the only ones with a bad rep abroad. Unconsciously condescending and presumptuous, French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, who goes by the code name OSS 117, is as boorish and sanctimonious as any Ugly American. The character first appeared in print in 1949, four years before James Bond, and became so popular that he was featured in 265 novels (75 million sold). But director Michel Hazanavicius doesn’t reinvent mid- 20th-century espionage for the new millennium (unlike one international franchise), but lampoons it, taking aim at the prevailing colonial attitudes of the time.

However, the 50-year distance from its setting, 1955 Cairo, softens its satirizing of French male entitlement. The barbs would have been more provocative had the movie been set in, say, 1950s Algiers, but then this comedy probably would not have been as popular at the French box office. Since Swinging London is nowhere in sight, the tone is, sadly, less cheeky and juvenile than the Austin Powers series, even if it does have one prominent phallic gag. Most of its humor is of the fish-out-of-water variety between the locals and the agent, who has landed in Egypt to investigate the murder of a fellow agent.

Far better looking than your typical clown, star Jean Dujardin, the film’s saving grace, looks the part, with slicked-back, jet-black hair and a glowing tan – like Sean Connery with an aquiline nose. He gleefully plays the fool, strutting about with a self-satisfied grin, basking in the limelight and believing he’s a lot smarter than he actually he is. Many may not know what year the Suez Canal was built, but most wouldn’t believe it was 4,000 years ago or refer to the guitar-like musical instrument, the oud, as a giant turd. Many of the film’s jokes, like one about a secret code (“How is your veal stew?), are beaten to death, but Dujardin’s good-natured buffoonery rubs off, his behavior carrying the film. Kent Turner
May 9, 2008