The Secret Agent (15)

Former university researcher and dissident Armando Solimoes adopts the name of Marcelo Alves to escape retribution at the hands of the 1970s Brazilian dictatorship, and influential figures like power company board member Henrique Castro Ghirotti, who clashed with Armando when both men became entangled in a deadly conspiracy in the state of Pernambuco. Ghirotti hires former military officer Augusto Borba and his stepson Bobbi to kill Armando.

LondonNet Film Review

The Secret Agent (15) Film Review from LondonNet

From the uncomfortably tense opening scene of a random police check at a rural petrol station, where the fly-swarmed corpse of an oil can thief lies beneath a sheet of weighted cardboard on the sun-baked forecourt, writer-director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s Oscar-nominated political thriller exerts a sustained chokehold on our attention. The swirling stench from that bloated cadaver hangs in the air almost as palpably as the threat of violence towards the title character, embodied with quiet resolve by Wagner Moura against a backdrop of political suppression overseen by a brutal military dictatorship in 1970s Brazil…

Former university researcher and dissident Armando Solimoes (Moura) adopts the name of Marcelo Alves to escape retribution at the hands of the dictatorship, and powerful figures like power company board member Henrique Castro Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli), who clashed with Armando when both men became entangled in a deadly conspiracy in the state of Pernambuco. Ghirotti hires former military officer Augusto Borba (Roney Villela) and his stepson Bobbi (Gabriel Leone) to kill Armando. The hit men slowly gravitate towards the state capital, Recife, where their target is living under the roof of Dona Sebastiana (Tania Maria) alongside fellow dissidents Anisio (Buda Lira), Antonio (Licinio Januario), Claudia (Hermila Guedes) and Haroldo (Joao Vitor Silva).

The Borbas subcontract the kill to a local man, Vilmar (Kaiony Venancio), who uses an old photograph of Armando to track him down to his place of employment in the city’s identity card office. Meanwhile, Armando shares his story with resistance movement leader Elza (Maria Fernanda Candido) and police chief Euclides (Roberio Diogenes) and his sons Arlindo (Italo Martins) and Sergio (Igor de Araujo) graze greedily on the wrong side of the law.

The Secret Agent is a slow-burning and handsomely crafted thriller that wrings droplets of suspense from the political and social turbulence of the era. The protracted opening at the petrol station beautifully illustrates the deeply ingrained corruption of a police force that is permitted to bully and intimidate citizens. Nerves are set on edge for the rest of the picture and Mendonca Filho ratchets up unease with sporadic explosions of graphic violence, including a series of shootings that depict the devastation of a bullet impacting the human body in queasy close-up.

Set and costume design beautifully capture the unsettling period and cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova conjures striking tableaux, swathed in golden sunlight. Moura’s measured performance provides a rock-solid foundation for eye-catching supporting turns – Maria’s raspy mother hen illuminates her scenes – but the running time feels bloated to accommodate so many intertwined characters, including a coda set in the present day that hammers home the expendability of human life.

– Jo Planter