GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 5/12/08)

A spy movie spoof with a difference — actually, more than one — OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is breezy, goofy, pastel-colored fun for most of its brisk 90 minutes. The basis for this spoof is a putatively serious fictional spy, OSS 117; he's the subject of almost 300 novels dating back to 1949 (original author Jean Bruce wrote 91 books about the spy, and after Bruce's death his widow and children continued the series) and a series of serious films from the '50s and '60s. So this picture, a big enough hit in its native France that a sequel's being shot now, is kind of to the OSS 117 character what the 1967 Casino Royale was to James Bond... only, among other things, more coherent.

Dujardin's OSS 117, né Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, is a bulky but sleek musclehead with a dazzling smile, which is often obscured by the foot he's always putting in his mouth. "The trouble with Arabic is it's hard to read," he cheerfully comments to his comely Egyptian contact Larmina (Bejo) within moments of touching down in Cairo. Hubert's here to take over the assignment left behind by his assassinated fellow agent Jack (Lefebvre), who Hubert is constantly remembering in flashbacks that quite frankly undermine his overstated heterosexuality, which finds its ultimate overstatement in his encounters with the Princess Al Tarouk (Atika).

Aside from the spoofed Bond, OSS 117 as reimagined by director/co-writer Hazanavicius and co-writer Jean-François Halin also resembles Japanese/Jewish not-so-super-spy Phil Moscowitz (amiable zany) of Woody Allen's deathless What's Up Tiger Lily? That's both when the jokes work, and when they fall flat, as in a fight scene in which the two combatants never exchange a punch, but instead throw live poultry at each other. The picture's '50s milieu gives production designer Maamar Ech-Cheikh ample opportunity to evoke the cinematic depictions of the period as well as the sleek look of old adventure comics such as Blake and Mortimer, and the picture's setting provides equally ample opportunity for cultural misunderstanding humor that's fairly daring in our current environment. It hardly adds up to much, but it doesn't mean to, and it'll leave you with a cleaner conscience than an Austin Powers picture.

— Glenn Kenny