‘OSS 117′ Rio mission falters

On the Cine Synapse rating scale, this film receives a:

Nah
Take It or Leave It
Well Worth Your While
Must See

***

OSS 117: Lost in Rio, from director Michel Hazanavicius, is the second in a parody franchise drawn from a non-parody book and movie franchise about a postwar French superspy who predated Bond. Lampooning the sexist, racist presumptions of the de Gaulle-era establishment, the film might remind American audiences of  Bond parodies including the 1967 Casino Royale, Johnny English, the Austin Powers movies, as well as more general spy spoofs like Top Secret and the Hot Shots flicks. Rio’s consciously un-PC retro-hero even brings to mind the 1987 Hanks/Aykroyd parody-action version of Dragnet.

When you think about it, those other movies represent a pretty broad range of parodies, with varying MO’s and targets, and, alongside some slightly narrow French political references and concerns, plus some intermittent pacing problems, Rio runs into troublesome comedic mission creep in competing in so many subgenres. It even takes on Hitchcock burlesques like High Anxiety in a stale, gaudy Vertigo subplot, and Producers-type Nazi send-ups too. Much like its clueless hero, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, or agent OSS 117, the film has lots of juicy targets but becomes disoriented and isn’t sure which ones it’s chasing after at any given moment.

Still, if you have a taste for generally well-executed and sometimes culturally daring humor, you might want to give Rio a little of your time, because it does have some things going for it, not least among them the clownishly charismatic Jean Dujardin as Hubert. He’s got the smarmy, condescending 60s-era spy poses and attitude down cold, and shoulders up against Peter Sellers Clouseau territory and Monty Python edge too in his absurd bumble in the jungle. He is pursuing, you see, ex-Nazis in Brazil, while pursued by Chinese assassins angry about an Austin-Powersish melee in Gstaadt. The prize is a microfilm listing French Nazi collaborators. Aiding Hubert is an obnoxious CIA agent, Trumendous, played by Ken Samuels with a belligerently barking laugh and horribly accented French dotted with English swearing. Trumendous is like Fleming’s Felix Leiter crossed with one of Graham Greene’s most obnoxious American spooks.

While it doesn’t all come off, there are some ambitiously boundary-pushing bits playing off the anti-Semitic and just plain ignorant Hubert’s collaboration with a beautiful go-go-booted, mini-dressed Mossad agent, Dolores (Louise Monot), and French hypocrisy regarding Vichy-era political compromises. Hubert’s  carnivorously manly spit-roasting of a crocodile, an amusing open-gowned chase in a hospital, scattered bad-guy gunfire allergic to its heroic target, and similarly imaginative gags provide lots of visual ribaldry.

And in general, Rio just looks fantastic, nailing its 60s-inspired vision from Nathalie Chesnais’s crisp, colorful costuming to Eric Lecuyver’s well-scouted modernist locations. Guillaume Schiffman’s cinematography has that beiged-out panoramic postcard look of the Goldfinger period; editor Reynauld Bertrand adds some over-the-top Thomas Crown Affair-type split screens; and Ludovic Bource’s musical score is right on genre cue, down to the reverbed, delayed flute riffs when Hubert is spooked (although the Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock quotes seem to cross the boundary from musical tribute to possible copyright infringement).

While surely not for everyone, Rio will nonetheless be a moderately fun romp for a self-selecting few who can’t resist a spy who has everything, except common sense and tact.