The Lucid Nightmare: Our Agent Tiger

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Thursday, February 16, 2012

i SPY EUROSPY: Our Agent Tiger

Our Agent Tiger
Director: Claude Chabrol
Year 1965

Our Agent Tiger is the second film to follow the exploits of secret agent Louis Rapiere AKA the Tiger, a man that can take one hell of a beating and still keep on ticking. In this Eurospy blast, Tiger is assigned to watch over a diving team as they recover a sunken treasure. Unfortunately for Tiger and especially the diving team, a nefarious organization known as The Orchid want their hands on the good stuff too, resulting in a horrific massacre that nearly takes the lives of Rapiere and his sidekick Duvet.

After swimming ashore, the two find themselves deep within a diabolic neo-Nazi plot with enough danger and intrigue to shake a stick at. What follows is an enjoyable series of events that put the duo up against sexy femme fatales, deadly assassins, whip wielding henchmen, and an evil organization that will stop at nothing in order for them to obtain world domination. Sounds like a good time, so let’s get into the thick of it.

Like most Eurospy films, Our Agent Tiger has a tongue and cheek attitude that it wears on its sleeve with unabashed delight. Louis Rapiere AKA the Tiger, is a cocky and hard headed, literally, secret agent that never stops cracking a smile while battling with the bad guys. Roger Hanin reprises the role of Tiger and he does another commendable job. I really enjoyed his first effort as the fearless agent in Code Name: Tiger, and in this entry he seems to be having the time of his life. He has a swagger and attitude about him that almost makes him come off as a jerk, but he quickly becomes sympathetic when you see the amount of abuse that his character goes through while taking on some tremendous odds.

The fight scenes in Our Agent Tiger are just brutal, coming off as more of a mad-cap brawl to the death then any kind of choreographed duel. Often times Tiger resorts to using his head as a battle ram, diving head long into his opponents midsection in a desperate attempt to gain some ground. It’s kind of humorous to see play out, because most of the time he is stumbling through these fight scenes, barely appearing fully with it after receiving such a large amount of punishment from the huge number of henchman that he encounters. The guy is like Rocky but without the training. He can take anything they dish out, but he won’t look like the most graceful of fighters while in the process. For me the awkward and brutal fight scenes added to the fun factor of the film.

There are also some rather enjoyable characters in the movie, aside from Hanin’s Tiger. Take Rapiere’s sidekick for instance, Duvet, played by Roger Dumas. He comes off as a bumbling science type, but given the opportunity he can deal out some pretty sweet moves when forced to act. There seems to be a playful relationship between the two agents, Tiger and Duvet, where they take turns saving each other over the course of the film. I also thought it was kind of funny, but strange, that Tiger felt the need to slap Duvet on the head whenever they were going to leave a room or after someone just finished an important line of transitional dialogue. It’s a running gag, that never is really addressed, making it that much more odd and effective. Their dual presence in the film is a nice added feature and they both play off of each other perfectly.

Another perfect feature of Our Agent Tiger, is the inclusion of the one and only Eurospy goddess, Margaret Lee. She plays the role of a double agent, working within the ranks of The Orchid organization. She doesn’t get as much screen time as I would have liked, but the moments that she does appear are pure gold. She plays a sexy and seductive temptress in the first portion of her role, forcing Tiger to be on his guard at all times when around her, but after her cover is blown and she goes from Orchid spy to Orchid prisoner, Tiger does everything he can to save her. The filmmakers even came up with a brilliant outfit for Lee to be draped in for the grand finale of the film. After being exposed as a double agent, Lee is chained up at the foot of the leader of Orchid and forced to wear a skimpy leopard-skin loincloth. This scene looks like some kind of obscure version of Princess Leia in Jabba the Hutt’s palace, but damn if I don’t like this iteration better. Call me crazy but Lee can’t be beat! I love her brief but affective role in this film and as usual, she knocks it out of the park.

Our Agent Tiger is a brilliant Claude Chabrol directed Eurospy that, while not one of the most accomplished of secret agent films, has a great deal going for it. Roger Hanin is great as Tiger, giving an almost too cocky performance, but having that quality can never be a bad thing in this genre. The audacity of his character is entertaining as hell and the physical nature of his role is phenomenally fun.

The addition of both Roger Dumas’ Duvet character and Margaret Lee’s double agent are strokes of Eurospy genius and each character brings their own positives to the production. Margaret Lee especially, because you don’t appear in as many Eurospy films as she has without having that special kind of quality that fits perfectly within these stories. She’s sexy, talented, and able to take on so many types of contradictory roles, that she becomes an asset to any film she finds herself in.

With all the entertaining aspects of Our Agent Tiger, you’d be hard pressed to not at least crack a smile during its run time. When it comes to Eurospy, you have to be up for a good time and with this film that’s exactly what you get. Our Agent Tiger is…….