Agente speciale 117 al servizio della Repubblica - Allerta rossa in Africa nera

Third installment of the OSS 117 saga; the first one took place in the late fifties an showed "the hero's perfect mastery of the muslim world "; the second one,a precise spoof on the "serious " OSS 117 of sixties eurospies,the likes of "furia à Bahia pour OSS 117" set Hubert against the exiled Nazis and showed his "perfect knowledge of WW2".

Then this one , set in a precise moment of French politics :1981, A few months and Giscard D'Estaing would disappear (President Bamba's royal present won't be lost on French people who lived through the seventies) .

The world has changed ; Hubert Bonnisseur de la Bath hasn't ;he's still a, condescending ,ignorant ,dumb , uneducated ,vain, and ,to crown it all ,homophobic macho .

Jean Dujardin is true to from ,and he's probably the best contemporary comic actor (like the great ones,he can also take dramatic parts);with a lesser talent, this could have turned in one of those crude feel good froggy comedies ;he escapes unharmed .

He gets good support from Pierre Ninney ,as OSS 1001 (because the Deuxième Bureau runs out of three-figure designations) ; this young arrogant pretty boy shows himself better than his elder -which is not hard to do-,and ,which makes the matters worse , a rival with women! (a thing that even Bond never ran into); not only Hubert botches his collaborator's job in a shameless way,but he makes him believe he's got the brains although he only mutters "yes yes " " I know that" "that's what I wanted to say" ;and when the young Turk realizes Hubert has led him up the garden path and says that he 's got all the time in the world, it's too late (to skim pebbles can be dangerous!)

Of course ,it's uneven ,and one wishes the feminist side (in spite of the unexpected twist) had been more exploited ,but the numerous gags (some puns may be lost on a non-French audience) :

-Hubert depicting the Africans, then improving his knowledge by reading Hergé 's "Tintin au Congo"!

-His condescension towards the servants ,the natives , an ironical put-down of politically correct people

• "The lion does not know my gun isn't loaded " ,my favorite line.

Given the chilly reviews it met with, we won't probably be granted a fourth installment and it's too bad ; it's not for highbrows , it's not food for thought ,but balderdash! Dujardin ,the only AA winner French actor -among four ,including three actresses-,is not chopped liver!