A Gaumont release of a Mandarin Cinema, Gaumont, M6 Films production, with participation of M6, Canal Plus, Cinecinema. (International sales: Gaumont, Paris.) Produced by Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer. Directed by Michel Hazanavicius. Screenplay, Hazanavicius, Jean-Francois Halin, inspired by the "OSS 117" novels by Jean Bruce.
With: Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, Alex Lutz, Rudiger Vogler, Ken Samuels, Reem Kherici, Pierre Bellemare, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Capelluto, Moon Dailly, Walter Shnorkell, Philippe Herrison.
Serving up another cocktail of cheeseball pickup lines, hammy play-acting and self-ridiculing Frenchiness, "OSS 117: Lost in Rio" is a satisfying sequel to 2006's cultish sendup hit. Stuck in a time-warped Brazil that resembles a yellowing '60s postcard, Jean Dujardin pulls off a charming, Peter Sellers-esque performance as he bumbles his way through retro cloak-and-dagger intrigue, displaying his character's uncanny ability to insult anyone -- and, especially in this episode, women and Jews -- who's not 100% Gallic, male and a diehard Charles de Gaulle fanatic. Local B.O. should echo the previous film's 2.2 million admissions, with guaranteed homevid viewings.
Like "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," the pic is a full-blown parody of a series of widely popular postwar novels and films featuring secret agent OSS 117 (whose outlandish real name, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, has become a running joke in the new installments.) Similar to James Bond but 200 times cornier, OSS was the quintessential fictional hero of de Gaulle's decade-long reign, defending his patrie against its greatest threat: foreigners.
Returning team of scribe Jean-Francois Halin and writer-director Michel Hazanavicius once again turns the original character and timeframe upside down, presenting a hilariously straight-faced mockery of the Cold War era and its nationalist mindset.
Kicking off with a multi-screen credits sequence that has OSS (Dujardin) surrounded by a clan of dancing girls as he ever-so-casually twists to a Dean Martin song, the film constantly and adeptly mimics the themes and techniques of B-grade thrillers of the epoch. Sent to Brazil to retrieve a microfilm containing the names of Frenchmen who assisted the Nazi regime (although he's astounded that any such collaborators existed, he swears to protect their secrecy), he finds himself in a Bossa Nova dreamland of bikini-clad women, perma-tanned foreign agents and pesky, gun-wielding "Chinamen" (as he calls them).
Pic's greatest gags arrive when OSS joins forces with Dolores (Louise Monot), a sexy Mossad lieutenant tracking down an underground group of escaped Nazis. Troubled by the fact that she's both a woman and a Jew, he tries to turn on the charm but can't help his misogyny and anti-Semitism from screwing things up. "I just don't understand a religion that doesn't let you eat sausages," he says, before ordering her to set the table for dinner as they wander, lost, through the Amazon jungle.
The jokes become more physically lampoonish in the later reels, but Dujardin does wonders in a scene that has him half-paralyzed and chasing his nemesis down a hospital corridor. Between his hearty cornball laugh, his stoic delivery of shameful dialogue and the way he carries himself around in endless self-admiration, the actor invents a persona that, like Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, is a continual joy to watch.
Tech credits are superbly and purposely old-school, with Guillaume Schiffman's flattened-out widescreen lensing capturing the action in a muted blue-brown-maroon color palette. Location shooting in Rio and Brasilia features several examples of '40s and '50s modernist architecture, which look all the more ancient in the film's stylized passe universe.
Camera (color, widescreen), Guillaume Schiffman; editor, Reynald Bertrand; music, Ludovic Bource; production designer, Maamar Ech-Cheikh; sound (Dolby Digital), Didier Sain, Nadine Muse, Gerard Lamps; stunt coordinator, Philippe Guegan; assistant director, James Canal casting, Stephane Touitou. Reviewed at Gaumont Champs Elysees Marignan 3, Paris, April 15, 2009. (In City of Lights, City of Angels Film Festival, Los Angeles.) Running time: 101 MIN.
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Date in print: Mon., Apr. 20, 2009