The Secret Agent (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – In 1977, an engineer flees from a mysterious past and returns to his hometown of Recife in search of peace. He soon realizes that the city is far from being the refuge he seeks.

My Take – Though they have produced some great films over the years, I never knew how great Brazilian cinema is until I experienced this much acclaimed neo-noir historical political thriller film from writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Aquarius, Bacurau), which as of last night has also been nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (for Wagner Moura), Best Casting and Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.

Despite its misleading title, this is not a film which follows the usual spy thriller beats, but instead works as something far stranger, richer, and ultimately a more haunting story about how an innocent person gets trapped in his own country because of the rampant corruption and the lack of reliable governance. Steeped in dread and densely packed with homage to the sweaty, paranoid suspense thrillers of the 1970s, the film is a masterclass in manipulating genre, tone, and audience expectations.

Led by a mournfully seductive Wagner Moura, the narrative is set almost exclusively in 1977 Recife, which we’re told in the opening scene was a period of great mischief, clearly a euphemism for the rampant and widespread corruption, the film is visually and dramatically superb in every way, moving with unhurried confidence across the screen, pausing to savor every bizarre bit of comedy or note of pathos, on its long path to the violent finale.

Sure, its 158 minutes run time is certainly on the long side, particularly as it doesn’t have the imperatives of a conventional thriller and expecting these will cause impatience, but as we are slowly fed information about why the lead character is on the run and what exactly is unfolding more widely, the tension and stakes amp up with rarely a dull moment.

Along with being a showcase for Moura’s complex performance, the bravura film-making makes this a must-watch thriller that has already begun leaving its mark in the ongoing awards season.

Set in 1977, during the Brazilian dictatorship, the story follows Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura), who’s going by the alias Marcelo Alves, a man newly arrived in a residential complex in Recife during the annual Carnival period. A small Kodak box fits all of his possessions, and he gives little away about himself.

In his previous life, Marcelo was an an academic working in engineering who found that a minister, Henrique Castro Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli), with private commercial connections was ready to shut down his university department and transfer all its research, with its lucrative industry potential, to a private company in which the minister owned shares. And when he stood up for himself and his team, the resulting quarrel not just robbed him of his reputation, but also his beloved wife Fátima (Alice Carvalho).

Hence, Marcelo got spirited away to these particular apartments run by vigilant matriarch Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria), and placed in employment at the government department responsible for issuing ID cards, that is until he is ready to leave the country with his young son, Fernando (Enzo Nunes), who has been living with his maternal grandparents.

But getting out is not going to be an easy feat, as corruption, surveillance, and sinister men orbit him at every turn — including two unnervingly unflappable hit-men, Bobbi (Gabriel Leone) and his stepfather Augusto (Roney Villela), hot on his trail.

Indeed, there are all the hallmarks of espionage flicks like phone tapping, code names and surveillance, but this is a unique film that is never quite what viewers would expect. While a work of fiction, it wonderfully captures the unease, discontentment and unscrupulousness of the era with danger lurking at every corner.

Switching between political violence, black comedy and mass hallucination, there’s a lot going on here, but director Filho deftly handles each disparate element, weaving it all together into one elegant story. Though it hides in plain sight and through the lens of a conventional thriller at first, director Filho peels away the layers of his film to reveal something altogether mesmerizing and devastating.

For example, on its surface, the film is about a man on the run, but is also interested in how common this situation is under Brazil’s military dictatorship. And though it blends in thrilling set pieces it mostly a meditation on memory and family, while some surrealist elements portraying the psychic and bodily impacts of such a regime.

As Marcelo’s motives reveal themselves, he’s not necessarily looking to outrun his past as much as he’s searching for it, as if he needs to know what he’s running away from before he leaves. A fantastically staged showdown between Euclides’ goons, the hired assassins, and a gritty subcontracted killer bleeding through the streets of Recife is yet another exceptional sequence, a culmination bolstered by all the meaningful details of Armando’s goals in his desperate flight out of Recife.

Despite the paranoia and corruption that pervades the narrative, director Filho‘s film is a stunning ’70s affair. He injects this slow-burn narrative with a gorgeous use of those earlier cinema techniques like editing wipes, Panavision cinematography, and a stylish old-school opening & ending credits sequence.

On the other hand, the third act is a bit underwhelming. Several loose ends were left hanging, left to fill them in with your own imagination, but with such a long runtime, those threads and the entire story deserved to be completed. Personally, I would have trimmed some of the excess earlier to allow the story to conclude fully. Nevertheless, despite these issues, it remains a great piece of art and film making.

Performance wise, ‘Narcos’ and ‘Civil War’ star Wagner Moura‘s radiant turn traverses warranted rage, charismatic nonchalance, and eventually restrained fear. Within a single film, the celebrated actor conceives a chameleon turn that lays out the impressive magnitude of his dramatic talent.

In supporting turns, Tânia Maria, Carlos Francisco and Robério Diógene are endearing, while Laura Lufési, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leone, Roney Villela, Luciano Chirolli, Hermila Guedes, Isabél Zuaa, Ítalo Martins, Igor de Araújo and Alice Carvalho make for a sincere ensemble. On the whole, ‘The Secret Agent’ is an excellent slow-burn Brazilian political crime thriller that weaves us in with its elegant, moody and intense narrative and Wagner Moura‘s commanding performance.