As a spoof of the James Bond genre of movies, "OSS 117: Lost in Rio," a French version by writer-director Michel Haznavicius, is often quite funny, nearly as often extremely imaginative. It loses points for a surprising amount of insulting so-called humor about Jews, but Jean Dujardin is effective as Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath.
Although we're many years after World War II, de la Bath is searching for an escaped Nazi officer who has fled to Brazil with a microfilm list of Frenchmen who collaborated with Germans. A sexy Israeli intelligence officer, Dolores (Louise Monot), battling constantly with the sexist Frenchman, is his comrade-in-arms, and the rest of the cast is filled with the same old cardboard cutouts. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The song "Gentle on My Mind" plays over the titles, but there is not much gentle about the movie.
"OSS 117: Lost in Rio" opens today at the Tivoli.
–Joe