Film Review: The Secret Agent (2025)
Every now and again – on those rare and blessed occasions – a movie comes along that feels as if it were made just for you. That is to say, I truly hope this happens to you as it does for me, and that, when it does, you’re able to recognize and appreciate the miraculous phenomenon before your eyes. Sometimes it may take a few days for a film to really sink in – perhaps its power strikes you down when you least expect it. But other times, you know straight from the opening moments that what you are witnessing has the power to affect you for a long time to come. It’s as if the director has opened your head and picked out all the things that make you and your sensibilities unique – and then committed them to film for the whole world to see.
For me, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent is such a film, and I will loudly and happily sing its praises for all to hear.
Less than five minutes into this wonderfully odd, bitingly political, and skillfully crafted giant of a film, I found myself jotting down the following note: “I might love this movie already.” From the outset, Mendonça Filho establishes that the world of his film – that of 1977 Brazil, while under military dictatorship – is one filled not just with fear and repression, but also beauty and a strong zeal for life, culture, and companionship. Politically, it’s a dark place and time, but the darkness is continually outshone by the brightness of its characters and the possibility they hold for a better future. They are refugees, activists, and others the state has deemed dangerous due to the things they have seen and experienced, and so naturally, I loved every one of these rabble-rousing outcasts instantly.
Stylized as a political mystery/thriller, The Secret Agent opens as Armando (played by the brilliant Wagner Moura, one of my favorite actors working today and who just picked up an Oscar nomination for his role) pulls off the road into a gas station. It seems simple and normal enough, until we realize there is a corpse lying in the field next to the station and that, according to the attendant, it’s been there for some time. The police arrive soon after, but they aren’t there for the body. It seems they’ve spotted Armando (or his sporty yellow car) and have decided to shake him down. What follows is an intense back and forth between those holding power and those holding none, as Armando – who clearly is up to more than he’s letting on – maneuvers his way out of a fretful situation and back on the road toward his ultimate, and as yet unknown destination.
This scene – a dead body half-covered with sheets of cardboard by an indifferent shop owner, a handsome laid-back man on a mysterious road trip, and a pair of highly corrupt officials fishing for a bribe – takes place entirely bathed in golden sunlight. Just as the bizarre and macabre details that literally lie motionless in the background are highlighted by the bright light, so too is the menace that drips from every moment and every word. Mendonça Filho shines a spotlight on the good and evil of his world, and it’s too glaring to look away from. It’s out in the open for all to see.
From here, we move into the city, where Armando joins a commune full of other dissidents in hiding, led by an elderly veteran activist named Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria). After being given a job (under a fake name) at a government facility, Armando encounters a corrupt police chief (Robério Diógenes) who, in a peculiar but entertaining subplot, happens to be investigating how an unidentified severed human leg ended up in a tiger shark’s stomach at the university lab (this subplot resurfaces in ways that, I promise you will never see coming). We also discover that not only is Armando being hunted by contract killers (for reasons that don’t become clear until later), but that, via flash-forward, his life is also being researched by students in the present day (our day).
Needless to say, there’s a lot going on, but the heart of the The Secret Agent lies in the addictive mystery of who Armando is, what he’s done, and what will happen to him. However, despite the appeal these unanswered questions might hold, what strikes me most about the eventual reveal of Armando’s secrets, is that, in the end, the mystery didn’t matter much at all, and that it was actually the amazing cast of oddball characters, the bizarre occurrences, irony-laden dialogue (note Udo Kier in his final performance), and the raw defiance of power that held my attention.
To this end, The Secret Agent is much more than just a political thriller. Its layered narrative certainly holds plenty of political bite, but without Mendonça Filho’s careful eye, that bite would risk toothlessness. Instead, it’s an overflowing surreal fountain of anti-capitalist and anti-fascist sentiment, wrapped in a beautifully dreamlike blanket, and topped with the kind of comical morbidity almost never found in American cinema. Not only is it my favorite movie of the year, it’s my favorite movie of the decade so far.
As I write this, January 24th, 2026, ICE agents in Minneapolis just murdered another bystander. Yesterday, over 50,000 people marched through downtown, and today, in what I can only assume was some sort of sick retaliation, multiple goons pepper sprayed a 37-year-old man, beat him, and then shot him several times while he was subdued on the ground. It happened near 26th and Nicollet, only steps away from my old apartment. None of this has anything to do with the above review other than to say that the convictions Armando and his friends held in 1977 Brazil are the same as mine today and I hope they’re the same as yours too. As the Brazilian dictatorship fell, so shall ours. And when it does – when we take our streets and our country back – heads must roll. I am so angry right now.
