‘The Secret Agent’ Review: Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Mischievous Epic

In a hypothetical awards category of Best Faces, “The Secret Agent” (2025) would leave any ceremony with the statue. Pinpointing a single distinguishing feature of the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s sweaty, pseudo-whodunit is a matter of taste, since the film’s greatest asset is the people, both in terms of quality and quantity. It’s much too much (a compliment), and, for me it’s the faces—square, angular, Udo Kier—that resonate, telling their version of a story that either contrasts or corroborates Filho’s generational sweep. Given the film’s vast canvas, it speaks to Filho’s patience and imperfectionism that “Agent” retains a palpable intimacy, doling out ample affection to all its operatives. Life zigs, zags, wears and tears and Filho follows his own omnivorous instincts in displaying the hiding-in-plain-sight misbehaving that burrows inward then expands to a wider scale, forming a polished epic that savors its excesses. 

Opening in the late 1970s, on-screen text explains that this was a “time of great mischief,” a cheeky wink of the forthcoming fireworks and bureaucratic hijinks. Cops demand bribes (donations), industrialists shoot to kill (or, outsource to criminals who in turn, pay someone else to do the dirty work) and a severe leg wreaks havoc on a thirsty, overheated public. Much of the action takes place in Recife, Filho’s hometown which also hosted his debut “Neighboring Sounds” (2012) and the playful, elegiac documentary “Pictures of Ghosts” (2023). Paying homage to himself and the images that shaped his youth, Filho makes the same movie house that was so key to “Ghosts” a central location for oral exposition and excitement in “Agent.” Filho’s a canny, dependable guide, and it’s his love of cinema (“Jaws” has plenty of airtime here) that illuminates his detours and grounds this often-unwieldly, supersized political thriller. 

Wagner Moura is Electric

As both pursuer and prey, undercover agent and public servant, Armando and Marcelo, Wagner Moura (“Civil War”) is electric, subverting well-established tropes of the wrongfully—accused/vengeance-seeking mercenary. On the run from the start, it’s not immediately obvious from—or towards—what exactly. Moura’s Marcelo is a fetching enigma whose costume disintegrates slowly, until he (well, Moura) undergoes two major identity shifts. Flashbacks and flash-forwards detail Marcelo’s motives, although tying the disparate threads—a murdered spouse, dead shark, corrupt cops—together are largely beside the point. What drives “Agent” is Filho’s unbridled enthusiasm and cinephilia—for a peek into his electic influences, check out the ‘The Secret Agent’ Network programming—broadening the scope of this film from shaggy-dog caper to a meaty historical interrogation.

Far from a mere star vehicle for Moura, unforgettable mugs pepper the screen, stealing scenes and never giving them back. Tânia Maria’s Sebastinia, that diminutive, chain-smoking handler, is a stand-out, welcoming Marcelo into her band of outsiders. Functioning as landlord, matchmaker and protector, Sebastinia asks questions she only needs answers to, and maintains the appropriate ratio of friends to enemies. Sebastinia’s ragtag community of rent-free tenants (don’t call them refugees) are in danger but not alone and Sebastinia is the glue that keeps the community together, linking Marcelo and Co. from troubled pasts, to uncertain presents and futures. As in “Neighboring Sounds,” all the heroes (Maria Fernanda Cândido’s Elza, especially), villains (Gabriel Leone’s Bobbi) and innocents (Enzo Nunes’ young Fernando) leave their mark, essential components of a massive, destabilizing cinematic equation that delights in its intricate construction. 

‘The Secret Agent’ Captures the Essence of a Mischievous Era

It’s a testament to Filho’s artistic dexterity and narrative curiosity that he can sustain a fervent, nervous energy for almost three hours. Towards the end, when Filho’s overarching thesis comes into closer focus, “Agent” vibrated with a potency that reminded me of  Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” (2021), a gripping, deceptively high-stakes film that might look like candy but is ultimately a hearty, satiating and rewarding buffet of lessons not learned. Between Filho’s ace-face casting and Cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova’s rangy, roving camera, “Agent” captures the essence of a mischievous era, preserving it for a modern viewership that would be right to snicker at the typical disclosure that any similarity to actual persons—living or dead—or actual events are purely coincidental. 

‘The Secret Agent,’ a Neon release, is now out in theaters. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s series ‘The Secret Agent’ Network screens at Film at Lincoln Center from January 7-13, 2026.