The Secret Agent: Movie Review

Cast: Wagner Moura, Carlos Francisco, Tania Maria
Director: Kleber Mendonca Filho

Possibly one of the most laid-back espionage films you'll ever see, Brazil's The Secret Agent requires a patience and commitment over its near 3-hour runtime for maximum reward.

Moura, who's won various awards already in the 2026 season, stars as Marcelo, a Brazilian living in a dictatorship which has been running for over a decade.

As the film begins, Marcelo is heading to Recife at the time of the yearly carnival, a place where deaths occur in an unsurprising fashion as crime and the fascism reigns supreme. Seemingly there to visit people, Marcelo's secret mission soon comes into sharp focus and puts him squarely in the path of the powers that be as a cat-and-mouse game begins (for reasons too spoilery and subtly laid out to reveal here).

The Secret Agent is not a film that's in any hurry to go anywhere.

In fact, its opening gambit is simply set at a petrol station, where a dead body lies in the distance and a store owner waits for the local police to come by. They eventually do, but are more concerned with Marcelo and his car than being troubled by the corpse that's lain under a sheet.

Moura gives a solid and grounded performance as Marcelo as the script's frisson of uncertainty crackles away in the background. With a young son for Marcelo in tow, the emotional heft is set early on and while it takes some immersion into the world for you to feel a pay-off and with an ending that seems brutally abrupt given what's occurred, The Secret Agent won't be to everyone's taste.

But to those who engage in its late '70s aesthetic and its slow burning build up, this is worth the time and investment - patience is its own reward, and while it does occasionally feel disjointed, it's a film that paints a portrait of a time and a struggle that's oft ignored, but painfully prescient in current times.