I was not expecting much when I began to watch this on a plane .I remember quite well the OSS 117 which were thriving in the sixties and which would remain a poor man's James Bond.Frederick Stafford or Kervin Matthews as Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath,it was all the same.
Jean Dujardin's"OSS117" is a different matter,because it's a spoof on spy thrillers.The cock and bull story does not get in the way does not matter a little bit.Dujardin's skills as a comic were already obvious in his hilarious sitcom "Un Gars Une Fille" .Here ,he plays a spy so dumb he thinks the pyramids and the Suez Canal were built at the same time,4,000 years ago!
Although his boss (Claude BRosset) praises him for his perfect knowledge of the Muslim world ,he does not even know what a muezzin is ,and as he tells his "secretary" : " there's no future for your religion" .Dujardin's adventures in the Muslim world remind me of the Dupondt's (Thompson twins)gaffes in "Tintin in the land of black gold" or "the crab with the golden claws".
I do not think that Bruce's fans will be satisfied.But those novels are dated and the writers were right when they did not transpose the action to our era.The film is deliciously dated :Dujardin strumming a guitar which "looks like a round spongecake" and singing the big hit of the late fifties "Bambino" (=kid) or the anachronistic "Un Clair de Lune à Maubeuge " which was released when De Gaulle was the president is good fun.The passwords deal with cooking ,which makes sense for French spies.
Perhaps not a great film but very funny and refreshing!They do not
even respect the "moving" "mysterious" "whatdaya suppose THAT means? "flashbacks .
A paddle ball tragedy.
Jean Dujardin's"OSS117" is a different matter,because it's a spoof on spy thrillers.The cock and bull story does not get in the way does not matter a little bit.Dujardin's skills as a comic were already obvious in his hilarious sitcom "Un Gars Une Fille" .Here ,he plays a spy so dumb he thinks the pyramids and the Suez Canal were built at the same time,4,000 years ago!
Although his boss (Claude BRosset) praises him for his perfect knowledge of the Muslim world ,he does not even know what a muezzin is ,and as he tells his "secretary" : " there's no future for your religion" .Dujardin's adventures in the Muslim world remind me of the Dupondt's (Thompson twins)gaffes in "Tintin in the land of black gold" or "the crab with the golden claws".
I do not think that Bruce's fans will be satisfied.But those novels are dated and the writers were right when they did not transpose the action to our era.The film is deliciously dated :Dujardin strumming a guitar which "looks like a round spongecake" and singing the big hit of the late fifties "Bambino" (=kid) or the anachronistic "Un Clair de Lune à Maubeuge " which was released when De Gaulle was the president is good fun.The passwords deal with cooking ,which makes sense for French spies.
Perhaps not a great film but very funny and refreshing!They do not
even respect the "moving" "mysterious" "whatdaya suppose THAT means? "flashbacks .
A paddle ball tragedy.