A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Secret Agent” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 3.5*, ’15’).
Original title: O Agente Secreto.
With “The Secret Agent” we are back in the troubled political climate of Brazil in the 1970’s, so this is almost a sister film to the Oscar favourite “I’m Still Here” from last year.
As a movie it feels like the ultimate shaggy-dog story, with fractured timelines that have you struggling to understand what is going on. But the film also has some astonishingly proficient set-pieces and a sense of goofy charm that kept putting a stupid grin on my face.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
It’s Brazil in 1977: as one character puts it “a time of great mischief”. Technology expert Armando (Wagner Moura) flees from a problematic past and returns to his hometown of Recife in search of peace. But a team of hit-men have been sent after him.
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (The film has not yet been rated by the BBFC but I would expect it to be a ’15’ for scenes of significant violence.)
Talent:
Starring: Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leone, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho, Robério Diógenes, Hermila Guedes, Tânia Maria, Luciano Chirolli, Roney Villela, Kaiony Venâncio.
Directed by: Kleber Mendonça Filho.
Written by: Kleber Mendonça Filho.
Running Time: 2h 38m.
Summary:
Positives:
- Some genuinely inventive movie moments.
- Great characters, vividly brought to life.
- Great production design.
Negatives:
- The plot is so chaotic, it’s hard to follow.
- The “Hairy Leg” stuff is waaaayy over the top.
- Another film insisting of using irritating and unnecessary chapter markers.
Full Review of “The Secret Agent”:
A real mixed bag.
Love it or hate it, this feels like an astonishing piece of filmmaking.
The screenplay feels utterly chaotic in terms of tone, shifting from black comedy to thriller to utter stupidity. The timeline is fractured, with most scenes set in 1977 but interspersed with scenes in the present day with a small team listening to tape recordings from the events we are watching. You feel heavily invested in the story of Armando, but, ultimately, that story never got satisfactorily resolved in my book and I felt a bit cheated.
But hidden within this shaggy dog story are some masterful moments. The opening scene is simply brilliant. Armando – or Marcelo as he has now renamed himself – arrives at a remote gas station to fill up, with a would be robber’s body lies in the forecourt, putrid and buzzing with flies and the target of avaricious local dogs! He then gets shaken down by a couple of dodgy cops. It’s masterful cinema that made me think that, if the whole film was going to be this good, then this could be another Brazilian Oscar classic in the vein of “I’m Still Here“. But this quality is not maintained.
Fabulous characters, brilliantly played.
Walter Moura (“Civil War“, “The Gray Man“) gives a superb performance as Marcelo/Armando fleshing out his character and his backstory progressively as the film goes on. We get to meet his son and – through flashback his ex-wife (the astonishingly beautiful and striking Alice Carvalho). Mauro’s acting during a car ride with his son in Recife is a masterclass in emotion and understatement. He is wracked with bad dreams from his past, not helped by the bizarre imagery of the Recife carnival going on around him. (Fortunately, as a very good-looking Brazilian, he has the naked Claudio (Hermila Guedes) next to him to soothe his troubled brow!)
Another terrific character (the originator of the “mischief” quote) is Dona Sebastiana, the 77-year-old owner of a ‘safe-house’ in Recife for those fleeing persecution. She is played in scenery-chewing style by Tânia Maria who comes out with some brilliant lines and was my favourite character in the film. She is also the owner of a Siamese cat, where ‘Siamese’ is also used in the form of the perverse birth anomaly: “Lisa and Elise” is/are one of the oddest looking creatures I expect to see on screen, outside of VFX, during 2025.
The bad uns.
We also get introduced to a wide assortment of rogues. A corrupt police chief Euclides (Robério Diógenes) is surrounded by his cronies. There’s a federal official, Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli), who is the sworn enemy of Alfonso. We first meet Ghirotti’s hired hit-men – an ex-military assassin, Augusto (Roney Villela), and his stepson Bobbi (Gabriel Leone) – as they dump an unnamed body into a reservoir. (Mental note: ALWAYS boil the water if visiting Brazil!). And an even more vicious assassin – Vilmar (Kaiony Venâncio) – is working “like an animal” in a sugar factory but definitely NOT to be crossed.
Veering into the bizarre.
I would have been much happier with the film if the story had stuck to its ‘hit-man’ knitting. But we have some bizarre diversion into a sub-plot of the leg of some poor unfortunate being found within the belly of a shark. This leg takes on some form of mythical supernatural form as “The Hairy Leg” in the press, and – back in the movie – starts kicking the shit out of fornicating couples in a local park (a sequence verging on the sexploitative). It’s all very bizarre and doesn’t sit well with the tone of the rest of the film.
A brilliant realisation of Brazil in 1977.
Hats off to the production design team on this film, led by Thales Junqueira, for making Recife look so realistic. Alfonso’s father in law Seu Alexandre (Carlos Francisco) works as a cinema projectionist, with Alfonso’s young son desperate to see “Jaws”! “The Omen” is currently screening, and the conversations in the back rooms of the cinema are intermittently interrupted by screaming coming from the auditorium! But the view from Alexandre’s balcony, overlooking a bridge over the river in Recife, looks superb and I couldn’t decide if this was some sort of recreation or whether it was a very polished back projection of actual 1970’s Recife footage.
Chapters…. NO!!
Chapter markers can sometimes be used in an innovative fashion to divide a film into sensible chunks. This summer’s “Life of Chuck” being a great example. But more often than not, I find them to be an annoying gimmick, and this film was one such example. The ‘chapters’ – apart from perhaps the last one – didn’t noticeably divide the film into logical units and I found them plain annoying.
Summary Thoughts:
A crazy mash-up of different genres which really shouldn’t work, but manages – in its own goofy way – to muddle through.
Tickets for the London Film Festival showings on 14th, 15th and 18th (two showings) are currently sold out, but here is the booking web site to check for returns or other showings.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nNAVGX8n7w.
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