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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 00:59 |
With Jean Dujardin -- star of last year's surprise hit "Brice de Nice" -- in the lead, "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" has plenty of action, exotic locations and a polished surface and should do good business. It will appeal particularly to audiences who enjoy spectacular displays of incompetence from French protagonists in the manner of Inspector Clouseau of the "Pink Panther" franchise. The more demanding will appreciate a brilliant re-creation of filmmaking styles associated with the late 1950s and early '60s.
When one of its agents is reported dead and a Soviet freighter loaded with arms goes missing in the Suez Canal (this is 1955), Paris packs OSS 117 (Dujardin) off to the Egyptian capital to find out what's going on. Posing as the head of a poultry export company, he links up with local colleague Larmina (Berenice Bejo), who is to serve as his "secretary."
Fending off the attentions of a sultry, murderous vamp, Princess Al Tarouk (Aure Atika), an offshoot of the recently ousted royal family, OSS 117 soon finds himself entangled in a complex skein of plots, counterplots and general mischief-making involving Soviet agents, Islamic extremists (the "Eagles of Kheops") and a den of runaway Nazis hiding out in a nearby pyramid. The "dead" agent (Philippe Lefebvre) resurfaces, and the plot builds to a climax from which OSS 117 naturally emerges triumphant.
Along the way, the swaggering, preening hero proves to be racist, misogynist, homophobic and unfathomably ignorant. After one escapade, his foreman Slimane (Abdallah Moundy), to whom he has been unbearably patronizing throughout, looks at him and wonders aloud: "He's either extremely intelligent or incredibly stupid."
The spectator is tempted at times to think the same about the filmmakers. The movie's humor is highly uneven, ranging from subtle (the hero's underwater escape after he is dumped, bound and weighted, into the canal) to obtuse (much of the dialogue). Some of OSS 117's jokes are plain unfunny. Or perhaps we are intended to laugh at their unfunniness. The high politically incorrect quotient is similarly borderline: The invitation to laugh at offensive attitudes might be found by some to be offensive itself.
The movie plays heavily on the dated nature of the material and the attitudes of the period it portrays. Director Michel Hazanavicius, working on a script by Jean-Francois Halin, says he saw the movie as a tale set in 1955 as told in 1962. He and his technicians have faultlessly reproduced the style of such Hitch***** movies as "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest" and the first of the Bond movies, "Dr. No." The period effects range from the use of Technicolor and back-projection to the lighting, title sequence, costumes and acting techniques, particularly in the fistfight and clinch scenes.
Dujardin mugs with great gusto, camping a young Sean Connery down to the last jut of jaw and slick of hair and effectively carrying the movie. In a postscript back in Paris, OSS 117 is informed that in view of his "profound knowledge of the Islamic world" he is next to be sent on a mission to Iran. "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" ends with mission accomplished, but whether the joke can be extended to a franchise remains to be seen.
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Screenwriters: Jean-Francois Halin, Michel Hazanavicius
Based on the novels by: Jean Bruce
Producers: Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer
Director of photography: Guillaume Schiffman
Production designer: Maamar Ech-Cheikh
Music: Ludovic Bource, Kamel Ech-Cheikh
Costume designer: Charlotte David
Editor: Reynald Bertrand
Cast:
OSS 117 (Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath): Jean Dujardin
Larmina: Berenice Bejo
Princess Al Tarouk: Aure Atika
Jack: Philippe Lefebvre
Setine: Constantin Alexandrov
Slimane: Abdallah Moundy
Egyptian spokesman: Said Amadis
Plantieux: Eric Prat
Imam: Youssef Hamid
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