Even when it isn’t provoking out-and-out laughter, the impeccable French spoof “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” is impressive in its attention to detail. This movie is an affectionate send-up of a certain kind of spy thriller from the 1960s.
Perched somewhere between “From Russia with Love” and the “Austin Powers” pictures, “OSS 117” revives a spy series that was very popular in Europe 40 years ago. The first “OSS” novel, written by Jean Bruce, came out four years before Ian Fleming created James Bond.
Those were taken straight. This new movie looks at the subject with a modern twist. The setting is 1955 Cairo, where dashing (yet fatuous) OSS agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath has been sent to investigate. There’s trouble in the government and trouble in the Suez Canal, but agent 117 initially has his hands full trying to run his cover operation: a chicken warehouse.
The plot is not really important here. What’s important is that director Michel Hazanavicius and his team understand exactly what’s fun (and funny) about this kind of movie.
For instance, all those phony rear-projection landscapes that pass behind the characters when they’re driving. Or the tricky way that a code phrase (“How’s the veal tonight?”) might get tangled up in repetition.
The cultural cluelessness of agent 117 is also choice. Awakened by the morning prayers of a muezzin in Cairo, he yells out his window for the guy to pipe down.
Sometimes you can just sit back and marvel at the way this film captures the look, the exact quality of colors, of a mid-1960s spy picture. A lot of spoofs don’t get this level right, but “OSS 117” does it beautifully.
We must also pay tribute to the lead actor, Jean Dujardin. Not only is his comic timing superb, but he actually looks like Sean Connery from certain angles. And the filmmakers have found all those angles.
This is one of those movies that look funnier when seen with an audience (which is probably how it won the top award at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2006). Try to catch it that way, and then wait for the sequel, now filming.
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