OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006)

☆ ☆ ½

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) – M. Hazanavicius

Supposedly, this was a big hit in France at the time – and this is the team that went on to Oscar success with The Artist (2011) – but somehow this James Bond spoof didn’t touch my funny bone.  Yes, another James Bond spoof, although the hero, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, alias OSS 117 (played by Jean Dujardin), has a bit more in common with Maxwell Smart than with 007, even if he is made up to look like the young Sean Connery.  He’s not the brightest bulb and he sports an unreconstructed 1950s set of attitudes (the film takes place in 1955 but the filmmakers and screenwriters have at least updated their views).  Specifically, he takes a seriously colonialist approach to Egypt (and its women) but no one quite takes him seriously (fortunately).  The film is slick, with good production values, and had me wondering whether the actual Bond franchise is not all that dissimilar (in plot, at least).  OSS 117 is sent to Cairo to stop a religious uprising and find a missing Soviet ship carrying weapons.  His sparring partner is Larmina El Akmar Betouche (Bérénice Bejo, who went on to star in Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, 2013).  There are some recurring gags, a bunch of heavies, and the jokes are about the hero’s sexuality and his failure to understand Islam.  No one embarrasses themselves but it just isn’t funny. Perhaps that is enough said.