Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 3, 2024

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Kino Lorber's OSS 117: Five Film Collection release.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to reinvent Jean Bruce's iconic spy OSS 117 as a blundering oaf, with the result being what I personally found to be the surprisingly unfunny OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio. As I mentioned in my OSS 117 Blu-ray review, while anyone who sees a spy with two repeated digits and then a seven in their codename might naturally instantly think of, um, someone else, Bruce's creation actually predates Ian Fleming's work both in the book arena and the film world. Perhaps for licensing issues, the very first OSS 117 film, 1957's OSS 117 n'est pas mort, is not included here (and just as weirdly, it's not even in our database, which is why I linked to its IMDb listing). That particular outing featured Ivan Desny as Bruce's perhaps unfortunately named spy (officially Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath), but starting with 1963's OSS 117 se déchaîne, Kerwin Mathews took over the role for two films, followed by lookalike Frederick Stafford for the next two, and then by stalwart John Gavin for the final film in this collection, 1968's Pas de roses pour OSS 117. (Kind of interestingly in the trivia department, both Stafford and Gavin seem to be relatively "forgotten" Hitchcock actors.)

Vis a vis "forgotten" Hitchcock actors, there are probably many folks who think that Frederick Stafford deserved to be forgotten for his work in Topaz, but he acquits himself reasonably well taking over from Kerwin Mathews in the role of OSS 117. If he "acting" is still decidedly wooden at times, he has an at least somewhat surprising feral quality in some of the action scenes, and there are some elaborately choreographed fight sequences in Mission for a Killer that actually showcase some of Stafford's considerable athletic abilities.

This is another OSS 117 film where the luscious backdrop of an exotic location may help offset some silliness in plotting. If the previous entry in this series, OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok , hinted at contemporary events with a plot offering a quasi-pandemic and (intentionally) botched vaccines, this film has another "ripped from the headlines" aspect in that there are suicide bombers afoot, though they may not be "willing" participants, so to speak. OSS 117 travels to Rio to uncover a conspiracy involving people being drugged to become assassins (in a somewhat ironic plot point, since the very word "assassin" has etymological roots involving hashish, which early assassins utilized).

There are some interesting if kind of curious callbacks to earlier OSS 117 outings, including OSS 117 having to navigate potentially duplicitous females, and even one quick moment where a villain is tossed out of a window (see screenshot 7 in the OSS 117 Is Unleashed Blu-ray review for an earlier example).

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. (This film and OSS 117: Terror in Tokyo are paired on one disc.) I'd rate both this film and its disc mate as the overall best looking transfers in the Kino Lorber collection. This film really benefits from its Brasilian location work, and some of the wide vistas showing Copacabana Beach or Sugarloaf offer great depth of field and some surprisingly fulsome fine detail despite some hugely wide vistas. There may be just a touch of the same skewing towards yellow that I mentioned in the OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok Blu-ray review, but to my eyes it's not nearly as prevalent, and the palette looks nicely healthy throughout. Primaries can be especially appealing. Grain resolves without any issues.

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer features another fine sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track, though for the life of me I can't figure out why a film set largely in the Brasil of the late sixties didn't exploit that nation's gorgeous music from that era more consistently (there are some nice uses of Brasilian precussion instruments like cuicas and a passing attempt at recreating the "sound" of Carnaval music, but it's not exactly authentic seeming). As with Kerwin Mathews, it's apparent Stafford was dubbed, and judging by his lip movements, it looks to me like he was speaking English (there were evidently English dubs of all of these films, though they're not included here). One way or the other, dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only supplements included in this collection are some trailers found on OSS 117: Double Agent. See that review for details.

OSS 117: Mission for a Killer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some regular readers of my reviews, especially my music reviews, may be aware of my unabashed love of Brasilian music, and I have to say I was just a little disappointed in some of the scoring choices made for this largely Rio set film. That said, my hunch is most viewers won't give one whit about that perceived "problem", and may instead be concentrating (if that's the right word) on Frederick Stafford's odd "acting" proclivities, though that said, his abilities in the action scenes are rather exceptionally facile, and this film offers some spectacularly choreographed fight scenes. Technical merits are generally solid. Recommended.