OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006)

As a French, i found it very pleasant to be able to laugh at the old stereotype which is made of French like that, at some defaults of Westerners, at Spy movies etc...and at a lot of other things too, en route... I already saw it 3 times and each time i discovered new things and laughed to tears... Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Béjo, Aure Atika the director and all the cast, all the crew did a fantastic job. This movie is funny but is although much more than that : it's got plenty of levels to it. You laugh because of simple gags, because of some critics made with wit (the movie's courageous enough to be critical), because of physical comedy, because you believe in the characters etc... Esthetically and musically, it's a success too. Go see it if you can.

Fmovies: I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it ended up as one of the audience favorites. This is a spoof on the french cottage industry of OSS 117 films of the 50's and 60's. The first OSS 117 film based on the novel by Jean Bruce was brought to the screen in 1956, long before the first James Bond film, staring Ivan Desny as Hubert Bonisseur De La Bath and six subsequent action adventure spy films were made up to 1970 with Luc Merenda, Frederick Stafford, Kerwin Matthews and John Gaven all taking turns as Oss 117. Jean Dujardin is in the title role in this comedic take on the series. As the film begins set in 1945 he has a french mustache and resembles Desny but as the film begins it's setting of 1955 he really looks like Sean Connery. Jean François Halim wrote this hilarious screenplay of a spy sent to Egypt to investigate the murder of a friend. It borrows on the silliness of Naked Gun, Get Smart and the Pink Panther and uses fresh humor on current events in a delightful combination that international audiences will enjoy and I am sure this will be the only the first of more to come of a revived OSS 117 reworked to comedy adventures. Michel Hazanavicius directs. I would give this a 7.5 and recommend it.

Excellent exercise on multiple plans:

• showing the not yet ended colonialism spirit in France

• more generally the boring mindset of superiority from all western people

• a renewal of the spy and thriller movies: OSS 117 is uncultured and stupid!

The good idea is that, in spite of all these messages, it is a funny film, plenty of jokes and gags, very light and sparkling.

Special mention to Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo.

Definitely worth seeing. Wonder how it will be appreciated in US?

Seems to be a success in France, so probably a next version will come.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies fmovies. A spoof on James Bond about OSS operative stunningly performed by Jean Dujardin . Comedy spy-thriller with Jean Dujardin as inept secret agent versus nasty high-ranking Nazis and arms smugglers . Secret agent OSS 117 foils Nazis , beds local beauties , and brings peace as well as mayhem to Cairo . It's 1955 by time of dictator Nasser and the secret agent Hubert Bonisseur De la Bath, a.k.a. OSS 117 is ordered a dangerous investigation in Cairo , there he has to take his place at the head of a poultry firm . Hubert Bonisseur is the French spy considered by his superiors to be the best in the business , this time his assistant is the charming Egiptyan agent Larmina performed by Berenice Bejo , director's wife . He's been sent on a mission to El Cairo , Port Said , to look for a former agent who has been eliminated . His eventful mission takes him all across Egypt accompanied by a beautiful girl and taking on a lot of adventures , risks and double-crosses . The man is charming , and so is the young girl spy . Filmed on luxurious sets their tale is by turns an exciting intrigue and a love story . He acts as a playboy , this results to be his cover while he is busy investigating , foiling Nazi holdout and bedding local beauties . Hubert Bonisseur De la Bath, a French spy, is in Cairo to investigate the disappearance a French agent . He is he smart spy , or is he an imbecile ? He fights well but he's supremely smug and self-confident, even as he's deaf to cultural nuance and others' feelings , so the odds are even that he might survive .

Funny moments along with embarrassing in this first entry about secret agent OSS 117 with a likable Jean Dujardin , role of the accidental spy who doesn't know fear or danger in this comedy spy-thriller . In this entertaining adventure , the most unlikely intelligence officer in French Secret Service must stop a group of international Nazi conspirators , quelling a fundamentalist rebellion and deal with an intrigue about weapon smuggling . Hubert Bonisseur, a French secret agent who dreams of rising beyond his menial job within the OSS organization, after all the other agents are bumped off is hired to discover a mysterious ring . With one shot at redemption, he must employ all kind of means to unravel a web of conspiracy that runs throughout an ambitious plot . Hubert must use every trick in his play-book to achieve his objectives . For Hugo Bonisseur, disaster may be an option, but failure never is.

This original installment is an acceptable comedy though the formula is well known with 'The Pink Panther' series and recently with 'Johnnny English' by Rowan Atkinson . It stars clumsy Jean Dujardin as one man show accompanied by a gorgeous Berenice Bejo . The movie gets entertaining and hilarious moments here and there. This slapstick picture contains amusing , funny scenes , fresh and diverting moments but also flaws and gaps . Jean Dujardin steals the show parodying the ordinary international secret agent , James Bond-alike , including his ordinary faces , grimaces and gestures ; he plays stunningly the highly unorthodox agent, the inept and bungler secret agent from OSS . There appears two beauties as Berenice Bejo and Aure Atica . The actors seem to enjoy themselves immensely giving funny interpretations . Lively and atmospheric music by Ludovic Bource . Colorful and glimmer cinematography by Schiffman . Other films about this famous spy are the followings : "O.S.S. 117 Is Not Dead" with Ivan Desny ; "Panic en Bangkok" with

OSS: 117 (2006)

I wish for a couple hours I was French, because I'm sure there were twice as many gags as I could get as an American reading subtitles. Even so, what a funny funny movie. It's not quite as zany as a spoof like "Airplane" (nor quite as funny, which of course is hard to do), but it takes the Sean Connery vintage James Bond film model and really does a parody worthy of 007. And of the franchise, which of course is bigger than Bond, bigger than Ian Fleming could have ever dreamed.

But hold your horses--this is a parody of the real OSS:117. Yes, a French author created a Bond-like spy in the 1950s, and this movie and its 2009 sequel are really playing a double-edged game. They bring the old French spy to life (the original was a French-speaking American, bizarrely enough), and they make fun of him, of Bond, and of 1960s super slick sexist movies all around.

The star here, the Sean Connery of this spoof (he even looks a bit like the Scottish actor), is Jean Dujardin. He's brilliant. He's funny, campy, silly, serious, and subtle about it all. He plays the role with a kind of oblivious self-ridicule that Woody Allen and Peter Sellers were so good at. It's great stuff.

And he's backed up by a strong, if somewhat predictable, assortment of international thugs, beauties, and oddballs. There are shades of "Charade" here as well as the original "Pink Panther" movies. The scoring is amazing, composed with that Henry Mancini flair to a T and recorded with the familiar bright, echoey sound studio fullness of the time. Equally authentic are the opening credits, which were so convincing I had to double check when the movie came out. I was thinking, wow, a lost 1960s gem.

But it's a brand new gem, or almost gem. Time will tell if this will hold up over the years, but it's a kind of must-see now for anyone into Bond films, the 60s, French humor, or just a well made movie with lots of gags. Like the gag where the noisy chickens go silent when the lights go off, and so our hero delights in turning the lights on, and off, and on, and off. Just wait and listen. It'll slay you.

Just saw the movie, it's actually pretty good. The trailers'd left me an impression of either yet another Dujardin one-man-show-turned-film (à la _Brice de Nice_) or an expensive, stupid French comedy. Surprisingly, it's neither. Secret agent OSS 117 is stupid, but at least he sort of knows it, whereas I've always found that James Bond was stupid but acted like a smart arse. Dialogue is witty with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humour that one would expect from a British rather than a French movie. The women and the music are beautiful. A refreshing trip into the past, when the bad guys were ex-Nazis or Soviet brutes, cars were shiny, and France had colonies!