A marvellous spoof spy movie featuring France’s best agent, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, aka OSS 117 (Jean Dujardin).
It’s 1967 (I love that year) and de la Bath is sent to Brazil where he is about to meet a former Nazi, Professor Von Zimmel (Rüdiger Vogler). In Rio, our good-looking but clueless hero is assailed, in turn, by Chinese communists, perpetually laughing CIA man Bill Trumendous (Ken Samuels), Mossad agents and assorted Nazi henchmen. The movie masterfully piles cliché upon cliché and its glorious “on location” cinematography is straight from 1960s.
If this was an English-language film, we’d hear everyone speaking English with outrageous French accents. As it happens, the movie is already French, so we are treated to The Girl from Ipanema sung with German accent instead. The other highlights include a hilariously slow hospital chase and the final showdown involving Christ the Redeemer. Not particularly high-brow but good entertainment all the same.
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