Obviously, whoever rushed that remark over to his or her editor didn’t actually bother watching OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies. It’s a funny and well-made send-up of the Spy Genre’s Golden Era that doesn’t have to resort to blatant sexual humor or scatological jokes to make you laugh (think 1967’s Casino Royale with Peter Sellers… only funny). Actually, many of you may be amazed to learn that the movie is pretty family friendly: the “love” scenes (if I can call them that) are meant to be along the lines of the vintage espionage thrillers it parodies and so the camera usually fades or pans away (which leads to a silly joke in one instance) and there’s maybe one example of profanity (which most people won’t notice as they’re too lazy to learn French anyway). It sort of plays like a Get Smart homage at times (I refer to the series, naturally).

Now, allow me to give you a bit of history here (how many of you just cringed or groaned after reading that?): Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, alias OSS 117, is the super-spy hero creation of Jean Bruce and has appeared in over 140 novels in France (most of which were published Internationally), a far cry from his famous British counterpart. Here’s a little more history fer ya: OSS 117 first appeared on paper in 1949... James Bond was born three years later… which makes the Austin Powers claim from Variety all the more of an insult to viewers that were no doubt dissuaded into buying a ticket for OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies (leaving them to sit through The Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer or something) when it hit U.S. screens two years after its Euro release date in 2006.

Having been portrayed onscreen by the likes of Ivan Desny, Kerwin Mathews, and Euro cult film fave Luc Merenda, agent OSS 117 has found yet another new actor to convey his persona: French comedian Jean Dujardin - an actor who (I confess) I know very little about… which is partially due to the fact that I live in America, where we are encouraged to shun all things French… we like to pretend France doesn’t exist at times… and we occasionally rename potato side dishes from Belgium when we get angry towards them (the other half of my ignorance may be attributed to my total lack of ambition to do things).

As a forewarning: Americans with absolutely no knowledge of French history (which will be most of you… and, really, why should you bother, right ? The French only helped us to win our independence from the limeys and stuff!) will often find a large question mark floating over your head with some of the jokes here (ie the running gag or French President Coty… yes, France has Presidents), but that still should not discourage your ability to enjoy this movie.

Speaking of the movie, I just noticed that I’m five paragraphs in and haven’t really maintained my focus very well… so let’s start, shall we?

A decade has passed since agent OSS 117, with the aide of his faithful pal Jack Jefferson (Philippe Lefebvre), fought Nazis at the end of World War II (which would make it 1945 -- we Americans don’t even know our own history, after all!). When our hero discovers that his beloved friend has been murdered in Cairo (he continuously has flashbacks of the two of them rolling around on the beach together in a very gay - but manly - sort of way), he’s off to Egypt to spread his arrogant Westerner attitude to belittle those goofy Muslim folks and their crackpot religion. OSS 117 makes the acquaintance of two very lovely ladies (played by Bérénice Bejo and Aure Atika), inherits a chicken farm, and insults an entire nation… still finding time to learn how to dance, play the oud, and speak Arabic along the way.

As you may have already guessed, this incarnation of the French agent is played strictly for laughs (the other versions were serious… mostly): 117 is only an ass to the locals here because the writers are poking fun at that great illusion of Western supremacy many Europeans (and Americans, too) take with them to foreign lands. He’s a chauvinistic punk because chauvinism is no longer politically correct. He’s dumb because it’s funny, people… and star Dujardin positively shines all the way through… all the while doing an excellent Sean Connery impersonation that would have most half-blind elders in the back row of the movie house squinting in uncertainty (he even bears a bit of a resemblance to the former Bond star… with just a hint of Hugh Jackman thrown in… that last remark was just sort of my own personal opinion… really, there’s no need to write in).

Truth be told, Dujardin’s take-off of Connery’s Bond is so frightfully on the money that, had OSS 117: Cairo, Nest Of Spies not been made a comedy and was instead envisioned as a serious action reboot of the marketable franchise, it could have been ten-times cooler! That’s not to say that this isn’t a good movie, though… because it is. It’s a very good movie, actually (both artistically and humorously)… but my-my-my-my-Mitchell, would this have been a kick-ass reboot if it was done straight and they kept the authentic look of the 50s to it (something the Bond filmmakers maybe should have done with their reboot… which incidentally, this film preceded).

Go on, give it a shot… you can always take it back to the store and say, “Uh, there were these words at the bottom of the screen, but they were goin’ by too fast for me to read and I couldn’t watch the film because of them. I didn’t know this movies was in French or whatever when I got it. Why don’t you people label these things correctly?”

Presentation
MPI Films and Music Box have done a splendid job with the transfer here. The film itself recreates the look and feel of a retro spy flick quite nicely, and the color balance and clarity of this 2.35:1 anamorphic release might just have you wondering which era this movie is really from (because, chances are, you don’t know your movie history, either).

The only downside here is the lack of the 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack that was included on a few of the French releases (more on that below): all this DVD offers is a French Stereo option… granted, it comes through loud and clear, but one would expect more.

And yes, the movie is Subtitled in English. How else would you not get the French jokes, you stupid ingrate?

Extras
Providing you enjoy the film, these appetizers included on this disc as Extras will suffice (providing you even like Special Features, that is!), but there are a lot of things missing here when you compare it to the French Region 2 DVD release (hell, the French even have this one on Blu-ray! We’ll be lucky to see that happen over here within the next ten years!).

Honestly, here’s where my biggest problem with this release is. I accept that Americans don’t know jack shit about history or where French Fries come from for that matter. I totally fathom the unfortunate notion that Variety reviewers tend to be lazy and stupid (they are, amusingly enough, getting paid to review films!). I can even let the whole Stereo-only audio thing pass by without so much as a whimper… but goddamn it all, not including some of the high points from R2 discs is a great big huge gigantic ball of No Fun!

Neither the hour-long documentary (which could have served as an educational guide for the uninitiated), the audio commentary (which was also in French, yes, but it would have been nice to see it translated), the trailer for one of the older OSS 117 films (which I need to start collecting -- sorry, that was more of a mental note than anything) or a couple of other featurettes are included here, save for some of the “lesser” Bonus Features: such as the Making-Of Featurette (19:05), the Gag Reel (11:55), and several Deleted Scenes (17:03). All of the previously mentioned Extras are in French with English Subtitles.

A couple of Trailers for Tell No One and Tuya’s Marriage are also included and are encoded to play at the beginning of the disc. It amuses me to see the preview for Tell No One: everyone’s talking about it and here the R2 British release has been sitting buried underneath a pile of other DVDs next to my television for almost two years now! Whoops!

The Bottom Line
Seriously, with lines like “Funny how Nazis are always the bad guys. This is 1955… don’t we deserve a second chance?”, what’s there not to like?