DVD Review: Diminishing Returns Hamper French Sequel ‘OSS 117: Lost in Rio’

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CHICAGO – Like most people who were lucky enough to see it, I thoroughly enjoyed the clever comedy “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.” With a spectacular lead performance by Jean Dujardin, the film was a clever riff on spy movies that played not unlike a French Austin Powers but with the added twist that the title character was actually one pulled directly from ’60s spy movies. Imagine if James Bond went away for four decades and was rebooted as a satire of his sexist, racist, and generally stupid persona.

HollywoodChicago.com DVD Rating: 2.0/5.0
DVD Rating: 2.0/5.0

“Cairo, Nest of Spies” is a clever, witty romp with a great lead performance, beautiful locations, and a swinging rhythm, but sequelitis is apparently not purely an American phenomenon as the follow-up, “OSS 117: Lost in Rio,” hitting DVD tomorrow, August 31st, 2010 isn’t nearly as effective. Not unlike “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” the second OSS film suffers from the law of diminishing returns and makes the mistake of beating one joke into the ground. Most importantly, it’s missing the near-perfect comic timing of the first film.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio will be released on DVD on August 31st, 2010
OSS 117: Lost in Rio will be released on DVD on August 31st, 2010
Photo credit: Music Box Films

Of course, with a lead as talented as Jean Dujardin, “Lost in Rio” is far from a complete failure and the talented star and Director Michel Hazanavicius do occasionally find that comic beat that they maintained more consistently in “Nest of Spies.” But if the first film was a mission that you couldn’t refuse, the sequel is one you might want to consider renting before you buy.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio will be released on DVD on August 31st, 2010
OSS 117: Lost in Rio will be released on DVD on August 31st, 2010
Photo credit: Music Box Films

While “Cairo” focused on the thrillers of the ’50s, “OSS 117: Lost in Rio” jumps to 1967 as Hazanavicius and co-writer Jean-Francois Halin take on the cultural issues of the Cold War and the thrillers that were made post-WWII about the Nazi regime. The shift in time period allows OSS to work his way through free love, drugs, and even a few stellar Alfred Hitchcock references but the pattern of bumbling his way to the top a la a suave Inspector Clouseau remains the same.

In “Lost in Rio,” OSS 117 partners with a stunning Mossad agent (the effective Louise Monot) to travel to Brazil in a mission to track down a notorious Nazi (Rudiger Vogler) and a microfilm containing a list of French collaborators with the SS during WWII. Naturally, with a plot that involves Germans, Israelis, Brazilians, Frenchmen, and even a few Americans and Chinese, the theme of “OSS 117: Lost in Rio” is broad racism. Sadly, while the first few jokes about OSS 117’s narrow ignorance are funny, the 20th and 21st fall flat.

After a clever shoot-out in the opening scenes of the film, “OSS 117: Lost in Rio” never finds the rhythm that made the first movie so enjoyable, only occasionally producing the laughter so prominent when watching “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.” There’s a relatively-inspired action finale that directly parodies “North by Northwest” but on top of the Jesus Christ statue in Rio, but the film has mostly worn out its welcome by then. Dujardin has spectacular comic timing and almost makes the trip worth seeing alone but one hopes that the next mission, which one assumes will jump to the ’70s and on some other gorgeous foreign locale, gives him something more interesting to do.

As for the DVD release, I know French films can be a tough sell to a stateside audience but if there’s any film that a Francophile would love to see on Blu-ray, it’s this one with its gorgeous locations and beautiful people. The DVD includes an anamorphic picture with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and a “Behind-the-Scenes” featurette.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio” stars Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, and Rudiger Volger. It was written by Michel Hazanavicius & Jean-Francois Halin and directed by Hazanavicius. It will be released on DVD on August 31st, 2010 and is not rated. It runs 97 minutes.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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