The Secret Agent

The key to making a successful political thriller is to maintain a taught sense of mesmerizing, edge-of-the-seat intrigue. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the element that’s missing in this overlong, annoyingly convoluted tale set in 1977 Brazil during the waning days of its military dictatorship. The story follows the life of Armando (Wagner Moura), a former university researcher targeted for manipulation and framing by a corrupt, influential businessman (Luciano Chirolli) when the educator refuses to play ball with him. This, in turn, leads to a death threat against Armando, who must do whatever it takes to try and clear his name and stay alive. In the process, however, Armando gets caught up in a web of deceit, criminality and personal peril involving a shady police chief and his dubious associates, a pair of ruthless hitmen, a group of Brazilian and Angolan political dissidents in hiding, and a Holocaust survivor mistakenly believed to be a Nazi refugee. From this, it would appear that the film has a premise filled with potential to make for an engaging yarn, but, regrettably, it fails under the weight of its many shortcomings, most notably an overextended narrative that excessively delves into the details of government research funding and sociopolitical clashes involving regional Brazilian cultural and political differences, material that’s often tedious and not especially engaging. To complicate matters, director Kleber Mendonça Filho has compiled a mishmash of filming and storytelling styles that frequently impairs the picture’s flow and style, including a wealth of easily excised incidental material that tries viewer patience the further one gets into the story. This is clearly a case of a filmmaker in need of reining himself in, knowing when to kill his darlings, and unsuccessfully maintaining a level of suspense that, sadly, largely evaporates about an hour into the picture. In addition, this offering incorporates a present-day story thread involving a hi...

This film looks great. Brazil is such a cool place. I want to go live in this time...but as a rich white guy visiting who doesn't have to deal with the apparent horrors. Perhaps we could do a The Secret Agent 2 starring me.

I'd probably have to duck while using the phone booth. I crouch well.

Fun story. Interesting characters. Great! I bet this will get a Hollywood redux in a few years.

First things first: if you’re expecting something from “U.N.C.L.E.” via Ian Fleming then you are probably going to be disappointed. This isn’t that kind of drama. Instead, it follows three characters portrayed by Wagner Moura who have to navigate a series of political intrigues that begin in 1970s Brazil. Academic “Marcelo” (aka “Armando”) has arrived in his home city of Recife under some sort of cloak of secrecy; is being shielded by the wily “Dona Sebastiana” (a scene-stealing Tânia Maria) and some other citizens more inclined to freedom and is soon searching the local files for information regarding his late mother. As the plot evolves, we discover that he was formerly a university scientist whose career was kiboshed by a corrupt industrialist quite happy to steal ideas amidst a state where the rights of the individual were clearly second to a state run by a phalanx of corrupt police officers, or meagrely paid hitmen. Right from the start we are presented with symbolism of that, of extortion and bribery and of a society where the Cruzeiro is king and that theme prevails through what is essentially a three act play. The object of this isn’t always clear, and just when I thought I was making some headway it veered off on tangents. There is a sub-plot regarding his new, fleeing, house-mates; another more focussed on his son and cinema-owning father-in-law and there are also frequent interventions from two women who are transcribing tape recordings of conversations either featuring or about one of Moura’s characters. Who are these latter women? Well that ambiguity survives the film and it didn’t help keep the focus taught as the pace takes quite a dip towards the closing (second) phase of his escapades. There are aspects of the quite subliminally menacing throughout this critique on a society largely afraid of it’s own government, or certainly of doing anything about it, and although the ending of the film and the ending of the principal thrust of the plot don’t happ...

Don't watch this as a "thriller", as it isn't thrilling. See it instead as an artistic take on how political corruption destroys everything in its path and does so with a nearly unstoppable force. Excellent and believable performances, great effort to re-create a 70s atmosphere, although the script could have taken a bit more polish.

It helps to have at least a passing understanding of Brazil’s political landscape in the 1970s when approaching Kleber Mendonça Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT. Ruled by a military dictatorship until the mid-1980s, the country still carries the traumatic residue of injustice and repression.

Once regarded as a relative moderate who would guide Brazil back toward democracy, General Ernesto Geisel has since been reassessed in light of declassified government files. Those records confirmed what many long suspected: Geisel presided over a police state that targeted and executed perceived political enemies — not unlike the Stasi in East Germany.

It is against this tense and corrupt backdrop that Mendonça Filho sets THE SECRET AGENT. The opening scene makes that corruption explicit: a police search of the protagonist devolves into an attempted bribe, while a deceased criminal lies ignored just feet away.

As the film unfolds, we learn that widowed technology researcher Marcelo Alves (Wagner Moura) has returned to Recife under assumed names — Armando Solimões and Fernando Solimões — to reunite with a son being raised by his in-laws. There, he takes refuge among fellow dissidents in an apartment compound run by the elderly Dona Sebastiana (played endearingly by the feisty Tânia Maria).

One of Mendonça Filho's tremendous strengths as a writer and director is his ability to assemble characters from the margins of society and observe what forms when they are forced into community — a dynamic he explored to striking effect in his 2019 film BACURAU.

Mendonça Filho's background as both a cinephile and journalist is put to strong use in THE SECRET AGENT, as Moura’s Alves attempts to reconstruct his past. He takes a job as a records clerk — a position that allows him to search for his mother’s death certificate while quietly reconnecting with his young son, Fernando.

Alves' clandestine meetings with two investigative journalists reveals the depths of his pl...