Customer Reviews

Oss 117 - Le Caire, Nid d'Espions

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"I was woken by a guy screaming on a tower. I couldn't sleep. I had to shut him up."

(Shocked tone) "A muezzin? You `shut up' a muezzin?! He was calling for prayer!!"

(Bemusedly) "Yours is a strange religion. You'll grow tired of it...it won't last long."

No, that transcript is not excerpted from secret Oval Office tapes; it's an exchange between the cheerfully sexist, jingoistic, folkway-challenged and generally clueless French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (alias OSS 117) and his Egyptian liaison, the lovely Larmina El Akmar Betouche. The scene is from OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, a gallingly amusing Gallic spy romp from director Michel Hazanavicius.

The director and his screenwriter Jean-Francois Halin adapted the script based on characters from the original "OSS 117" novels by Jean Bruce, which concerned the misadventures of an Ian Fleming-esque French government agent. The books inspired a series of films, produced in France between 1956 and 1970.

After a brief b&w prologue depicting agent OSS 117 (Jean Dujardin) handily dispatching a Nazi adversary from a plane (sans parachute) in a wartime escapade, the film flash-forwards to the year 1955. Hubert (as we will refer to him going forward) is sent to Cairo to investigate the mysterious death of a fellow agent. He is assisted by the aforementioned Larmina (Bernice Bejo) and just like an undercover 007, he is given a business front. In this case, our intrepid agent poses as a chicken exporter; and yes, all of the inherent comic possibilities involving this most ubiquitous species of barnyard fowl are gleefully explored (and the credits assure us that none were harmed during filming).

As the intrigue thickens, Hubert encounters some sexy royalty in the person of La princesse Al Taouk (Aure Atika) as well as the usual Whitman's assortment of shady informers, sneaky assassins and dirty double dealers that populate exotic spy capers. In the interim, thanks to his deGaullist stance and blissful cultural ignorance of the Muslim world, Hubert manages to deeply offend nearly every local he comes in contact with. As one Egyptian associate muses to himself: "He is very stupid...or very smart."

Hazanavicius has concocted a tremendously well-crafted and entertaining spy spoof here that actually gets funnier upon repeat viewings. Unlike the Austin Powers films, which utilizes the spy spoof motif primarily as an excuse for Mike Meyers to string together an assortment of glorified SNL sketches and (over) indulge in certain scatological obsessions, this film stays manages to stay true and even respectful to the genre and era that it aspires to parody. The acting tics, production design, costuming, music, use of rear-screen projection, even the choreography of the action scenes are so pitch-perfect that if you were to screen the film side by side with one of the early Bond entries (e.g. From Russia With Love) you would swear the films were produced the very same year.

I also have to credit the director's secret weapon, which is leading man DuJardin. He has a marvelous way of underplaying his comedic chops that borders on genius. He portrays his well-tailored agent with the same blend of arrogance and elegance that defined Sean Connery's 007, but tempers it with an undercurrent of obliviously graceless social bumbling that matches Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau. One of the film's running gags has Hubert uttering "deep thought" epiphanies that belabor the obvious. While getting a massage, he announces: "I love being rubbed with oil." While at breakfast, he realizes: "I love buttering my toast." Stopping to gaze at a public fountain, he wistfully offers: "I love the white noise water makes." DuJardin delivers these lines with the knowing wisdom of a high lama, imparting a Zen proverb. I tell you, the man is a bloody genius. Not to be missed.

Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, a.k.a. OSS 117 (Jean Dujardin), is the most incompetent and culturally insensitive spy who has ever lived. However, none of his superiors in the French secret service seem to have noticed. After the mysterious disappearance of his former partner, Jack, OSS 117 is sent to Cairo to complete the assignment that Jack was working on. He must go underground as a poultry farmer and stop an arms smuggling operation involving Egyptian extremists and Nazis.

This is the eighth film to feature OSS 117, a James Bond-esque spy (the first OSS 117 movie actually pre-dated the movie of "Dr No"). Apparently the previous films in the series were relatively "serious" espionage films, made between 1956 and 1970, but this more recent update of the series is played purely for laughs and it succeeds immensely. "Cairo, Nest of Spies" is a very silly film that had me laughing harder than I have in a long time. What makes this film so great is the fact that the humour plays on so many different levels. Not only is there a lot of very funny visual humour (simply the expression on Dujardin's face was enough to make me laugh in a number of scenes), but the script is also very well written and contains a lot of great lines. Although made in 2006, the film is set in the 1950's and much of the humour comes from OSS 117's complete lack of cultural awareness and of his patronizing attitude towards all Egyptians.

Don't be put off by the subtitles, this is a great film that will appeal to any fan of spy comedies such as "Austin Powers" and "Get Smart", even if you don't speak French.

I saw this film in Paris back in April. It had no subtitles, and my grasp of French is not great, but since the comedy is mostly physical, it had me rolling in the aisles. WARNING: There were some actions I thought might offend Moslems, but they are perpetrated by someone who is meant to be a jerk, so the joke is not at Moslems' expense. I've been waiting for this film to come out on DVD - I can't wait to own it.

This is a funny movie. If you only had one year of high school French like myself, it's hard to follow with subtitled English due to the quick humor.

I would like to point out that even though the specifications show the following;

Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC
Language: French, English
Subtitles: English,

there is no English (dubbed) audio on the version I received (nor any other version I researched). The DVD case reads "French with English subtitles".

We had some big laughs regardless. This is worth having in your comedy collection.

Amazon - please check the DVD's you have in stock and correct the specifications as needed.

I contacted both Music Box Films and Amazon. They both assured me they would correct this.

1-15-12 Update. I guess that error has been overlooked. Neither Amazon nor the studio (Music Box Films) have corrected this. Amazon took the report (twice now), and I contacted Music Box Films again via email.

2-1-12 Update: I contacted Music Box Films again via email yesterday. I now see the error has been corrected. It took 6 weeks to correct this.

OSS 117: LE CAIRE NID D'ESPIONS (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies) earned the 2007 César (French Oscar) in the Best Production design category. The film is based on the original characters of writer Jean Bruce. Back in the sixties, after the international success of the James Bond movies, French producers decided to produce a certain numbers of films based on such popular heroes as OSS 117 or Le Tigre, aka The Tiger. Claude Chabrol, for instance, directed two Le Tigre movies in 1964 and 1965.

Now, if you haven't seen one of these movies, I really don't know whether you'll like this parody. To make short, if you appreciated Mel Brooks's Silent Movie or the Airplane! (Don't Call Me Shirley! Edition) serie, you could like OSS 117, LE CAIRE NID D'ESPIONS whose gags are as much verbal than visual. I personally liked a lot this film.

A DVD zone it's French but it's not boring.

This is why Jean DuJardin is "The Artist". His portrayal of a French spy ala James Bond meets Maxwell Smart/Inspector Clouseau is just wonderful -- handsome, charming, and funny. I happened upon this movie while perusing Netflix one night and became a big fan. When I found out he was in "The Artist" soon after, I knew I had to see that film as well without knowing anything about it. I'm surprised it took DuJardin this long to make it in America--what a talent.

This is one hilarious film! Jean Dujardin pulls of a Clouseau/Bond mix expertly. Two comments from the front cover: "The funniest spy spoof ever made," and "An absolute riot," are fitting descriptions. This was a terrific find and will be watched and howled over again and again.

That movie is simply hilarious! Not so much the situations or the jokes themselves, but the whole thing, starting with the ever-so-inept OSS117, so sure of himself, but also so very dumb, empty-headed, full of a-prioris, macho, racist, a real product of old, old school, but amazingly, still a winner in the end. Given his total blindness to the world around him, it's properly astonishing that he manages to go that far. In that, he's a bit like Johhny English, but like Larmina says, he's " so very French".
The movie is also a very good parody of a real spy movie, down to the Sean Connery-like move of the eyebrows. I can't wait to see the second one, which came out two weeks ago in France.

Growing up with the OSS 117 book series from my parents' bookshelves, I was eager to see what a screen version of this famous spy character would be like. I was leery, though, of a comedic version... But it turned out GREAT!
And I was also wondering if the old 1950s setting would turn a younger croud away... And indeed a lot of the culture of the time - wonderfully recreated by the filmmakers - doesn't translate well into today's world, but it is still a heck of an homage to the 50s and even the 60s, with a mischievous wink at French colonialism.
AND Dujardin is incredible as a young Sean Connery "sorta, kinda" lookalike!
Don't take it seriously at all (as I am sure it was intended by the producers and director) and you will have a fun hour and a half...

Taking French cinema's once much-loved 60s superspy and turning him into a politically incorrect figure of fun, a lot of the historical injokes do get lost in translation, but there's enough going on that's funny enough in its own Austin Powers fashion to make this well worth a look.

Although often regarded as just another Continental Bond ripoff, Jean Bruce published the first of his 91 OSS 117 novels in 1949 long before Ian Fleming reached for his Book of British Birds, and the first of seven `straight' adaptations was made in 1956, six years before Sean Connery was fitted for his tux. Later entries in the series got Frederick Stafford the lead in Hitchcock's Topaz and John Gavin the role of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever - well, at least until Connery decided to come back after all. But this isn't the Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, aka agent OSS 117 of Bruce's novels. In this 2006 comedy, the character has been turned into a walking criticism of outdated colonial attitudes: he's ridiculously overconfident, has questionable flashbacks of happier days with his dead sidekick on the beach, loves to fight, hates dust, can't understand why Arabs would make up their own language and religion, hands out photographs of the French president to locals as tips and ferments an uprising when he stops a Muezzin from making the call to prayer because it's interrupting his sleep. Smug, xenophobic and pig ignorant, he's the kind of man who'll take an insult for a compliment because he doesn't understand it. Like Inspector Clouseau he's completely unaware that he's an idiot, which is why the character works so well. Behind his blundering ignorance is a mockery of France's colonial past and western arrogance: his attitudes and certainties are as hopelessly outdated as they are delusionally overoptimistic

It doesn't hurt that he looks the part. With leading man good looks and a suit that could have been swiped from Connery's You Only Live Twice wardrobe, Jean Dujardin is exactly the kind of type who would have been cast in a serious OSS 117 film in the 60s. And this really looks like it could have been shot then - the look of the film is spot-on, with its wonky backprojection and that ever-so-slightly-faded colour that was a feature of many early 60s continental Scope films, while the production design looks just like a mid-60s film's idea of the mid-50s.

With so much attention going to the central character and recreating the Sixties style, the plot is pretty slight - it's mainly a chance for Bath to proudly flaunt his ignorance while poking fun at spy movie clichés, Nazis and chickens (the source of the film's best running gag) - and the film itself is often more amusing than laugh out loud funny. But after a slowish start it becomes rather infectiously likeable, and it's worth seeing for Dujardin's rendition of an Arabic version of Bambino alone - it's a real showstopper in the very best sense of the word!

Alongside a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with optional English subtitles, the disc has a decent set of extras - a making of documentary that details the attention taken to make the film look so close to the 60s films it parodies, some deleted scenes and outtakes, nearly all of Dujardin cracking up with laughter.