OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus (2009)
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Film Review

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but when it comes to art it is more likely a sign of intellectual laziness and/or lack of imagination.  Michel Hazanavicius's 2006 film OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions was a shameless pastiche of the kind of spy-thriller movie that was universally popular in the 1960s, a film so packed with clichés that it almost defied the laws of physics.  Yet the film was an instant classic, reacquainting audiences with France's premier secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (known to his enemies and paymasters as double-one-seven) and proving beyond any doubt that a spoof of a popular genre can have genuine artistic merit as well as great entertainment value.  Excessive use of multiple screens and sloppy back projection would normally clear a cinema hall faster than a dirty bomb or a sudden outbreak of bubonic plague but here they are employed to devastatingly witty effect and make you long for those halcyon pre-CGI days when moviemaking was far less slick and formulaic than it is today

In this second outing for OSS 117, the world's most chauvinistic spy finds himself in Rio de Janeiro looking for a former Nazi who still dreams of world domination whilst being pursued by vindictive Chinamen.  In the process, he has an uncomfortable brush with feminism (courtesy of an Israeli agent, with nice legs) and an fraught introduction to hippie culture.  Never let it be said that the life of a secret agent is an easy one.  Needless to say, OSS 117 gets his man (in both senses of the word), and a grateful France rewards him with the Legion of Honour, not for defeating the aforementioned Nazi but for helping to cover up some embarrassing war time secrets.  The irony will not be lost on anyone who lived through the last De Gaulle presidency, or indeed any French presidency since. 

OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus is every bit as tongue-in-cheek funny as its predecessor and, unlike the vast majority of comedies of recent years, it stands up to repeated viewings (even in the same evening).  The film is not only a superlative parody of the 1960s spy thriller but a brilliantly observed commentary on the era in which it is set.  The devilishly smooth La Bath looks like a relic from another era (somewhere between the Devonian and the Cretaceous), convinced that a woman's place is in the home and spouting the kind of overt racist comments that would now cause even the leaders of the National Front to blush in abject shame.  And yet he is far from being an unsympathetic character.  Endearing in his naivety and ineptitude, agent OSS 117 personifies an era in which racism and sexual discrimination were part of the fabric of our society, and it's a cheering thought to realise just how far we have come in less than half a century.

This is a great film for rampant cinephiles, who will no doubt be in seventh heaven spotting all the references to classic films, which range from the early James Bond movies to the more recent Indiana Jones films, with one or two amusing digressions into Hitchcock territory.  Racism is not an easy subject to treat lightly but this film somehow gets away with it, although some of the humour does get very close to the knuckle (La Bath's ingenious solution to the Nazi problem is to give the heel-clicking fanatics their own independent territory, a big like, er, Israel...).  The one sequence that can never fail to elicit a good belly laugh from any audience is the one in which OSS 117 attempts to barbecue a crocodile on a camp fire.  Ripping the bloody viscera out of a large dead reptile becomes far more than an attempt to make a nice tasty evening snack; it epitomises the determined struggle of the alpha-male to assert his control over the natural world, only to completely ruin his dress shirt and his self-esteem in the process.

Jean Dujardin is fast usurping Sean Connery's place as the coolest spy in the movies, but more significantly he is emerging as one of France's greatest comic actors.  The part of OSS 117 appears to have been made for Dujardin and we will doubtless see him return in the role in the not too distant future (as of April 2010, another sequel is currently being planned).  I for one can hardly wait.

Film Synopsis

In 1967, France's top secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, codenamed OSS 117, is sent to Brazil to locate a former high-ranking Nazi who is threatening to sell a microfilm listing the names of French collaborators in WWII.  Partnered with Dolores, a beautiful but deadly agent from the Israeli secret service Mossad, Bonisseur not only has power-mad Nazis to contend with, but Chinese hit men who are bent on revenge.  Whilst OSS 117's mission is merely to recover the compromising microfilm before it falls into the wrong hands, Dolores intends to capture the elusive Nazi officer and bring him to justice in Israel.  After a delirious chase from Rio de Janeiro to the Iguazu Falls, OSS 117 ends up having to confront his greatest adversary, his fear of heights...