1960s-Era James Bond is Skewered in New Spoof ‘OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies’

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:32:56 -0700

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The heroic nature of the James Bond series of films begs several questions about his representation of western world power.

For one, just who did he act for and what was he fighting against? The new French film “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” attempts to answer this question through a subtle and sporadically funny satire, a skewering of the Bond image and geopolitics in the 1960s.

Jean Dujardin as OSS 117 in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”.
Photo credit: Music Box Films

Jean Dujardin plays Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (also known as agent OSS 117).

He’s assigned to Cairo in the late 1950s to investigate fellow agent Jack Jefferson’s murder and to quell a Muslim uprising against western interests.

With a cover as a chicken trader – complete with a factory and caged birds – he proceeds to infiltrate what he believes to be the perpetrators.

Despite his obviously cloistered sense of regional conflicts, OSS 117 blithely reigns superior against his Muslim girl Larmina El Akmar Betouche.

Throughout his adventures, he investigates the murder of the agent, monitors the Suez Canal, checks in on the Brits and the Soviets in Cairo and even brokers peace in the Mideast by inadvertently stopping a fundamentalist rebellion. This is an odd bird of a film.

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Béjo in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”.
Photo credit: Music Box Films

It flits between a Bond-like spy satire and a political editorial about the last days of western colonialism.

OSS 117 is portrayed as a clueless and somewhat spiteful dim bulb – the kind who postpones an investigation because he delights in making chickens cluck by turning on the factory lights.

The filmmakers take great care in showing the handsome spy to be an empty suit, which is a justifiable criticism of the James Bond legacy.

His blundering is broadly insensitive such as with his beating up of a Muslim prayer leader because the noise he makes in calling the faithful disturbs his sleep.

He’s oblivious to the native world around him, the cultures and the people. His success depends on that selfishness. This is highly symbolic of western manifest destiny and is communicated effectively through agent OSS 117.

While this is not a laugh-out-loud film, it does revel in the quirks of the Bond movies and makes fun of those conventions accordingly.

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Dujardin’s leading-man looks are the kicker to most of the bits. A slightly gay air is put around his flashbacks with his fellow agent at a beach and his silly turn as a singer at a hotel bar.

But with the schizophrenic nature of the proceedings, the part mindless spoof and the political barbs, the film never settles into a groove that feels comfortably paced.

In being content to offer Dujardin as a “doesn’t he look like James Bond?” character, the film just doesn’t offer enough good material to sustain itself for 99 minutes.

Considering the situation in the Middle East today, even a romantic, Bond-like reminder of the past doesn’t really make it all that funny.

“OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” which features Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, Philippe Lefebvre, Constantin Alexandrov and Aure Atika, opened in Chicago on June 27, 2008 at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com