Written by Linda
September 08, 2010
If you enjoy fromage with your action, you can't go wrong with France's secret agent OSS 117.
France's answer to Austin Powers is the ridiculously camp OSS 117 series, actually based on a straight-faced series of hit books and movies that reached its zenith in the 60s, paralleling the UK's James Bond 007. This second OSS 117 spy spoof Lost in Rio sends our spy hero Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Jean Dujardin) on a mission to Rio to find a Nazi that claims to have an unfathomable list (unfathomable to OSS 117, at least) of French nationals that collaborated with the Nazis.
Of course OSS 117 has a beautiful woman to spar with—in this case a sexy Mossad agent (Louise Monot) who is baffled at the supposed charm on the ladies that he exudes. He can bed a beautiful woman with the snap of his fingers and a cocktail in hand, and can't understand why his clueless and completely un-politically-correct world view is met with shock and disgust from his new partner. Hijinks ensue.
Like the first movie, Cairo: Nest of Spies, the plot doesn't really matter. There are Nazis, hippies, burly masked wrestlers, and a villainess who looks just like Amy Winehouse. The film is such a lovingly constructed ode to 60s hipster films that you find yourself forgetting it is a modern film (except for outrageously out-of-place 50s-era OSS 117, who is already embarrassingly clueless in the feminist, free-love 60s). Jokes in completely bad taste are totally acknowledged, and are screamingly funny. And you have to admire how the filmmakers simultaneously mock the genre of films while following all the rules of that action genre.
But even if this series continues (and I hear there are already more movies in the works), and even as the films get a smidge weaker as they go on (this one is slightly weaker than the first), I bet I'll come back for more. Why? Jean Dujardin as the super-spy is so utterly perfect, so utterly smarmy, so utterly suave, and so utterly clueless, that he makes me laugh just by showing up. In a world where comedy can be so hit or miss, Dujardin as OSS 117 is a total hit in my book.
