THE SECRET AGENT: SUN-DRENCHED NOIR WITH A DASH OF SPIELBERG
Something lurks beneath the surface throughout Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent: the ominous specter of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece, Jaws. The visual callbacks are deliberate and visceral—a dead body in the sand, a disembodied leg, a gutted shark. It is no coincidence that the screenplay name-checks Jaws directly on several occasions.
The classic creature feature, and Spielberg himself, are undeniable influences on the celebrated Brazilian filmmaker. This debt is evident in Filho’s elegant camera blocking, his expert escalation of tension, and his injections of dark humor. With this espionage thriller, Filho isn’t just paying homage; he is proudly flaunting a Spielbergian flair.
Like Jaws, Filho’s film transports us to a ’70s-set coastal town. This is not the family-friendly suburbia of Amity, however; it is the bustling city of Recife, at a time, a title card tells us, “of great mischief.” This is a metropolis under the shadow of dictatorship. Into this murky world arrives dissident and single father Armando (Wagner Moura), who assumes a new identity and attempts to lay low. But “mischief” soon catches up with him as he becomes targeted for assassination.
Moura is a major star in Brazil, but thanks to his portrayal of Pablo Escobar in the hit
Netflix series Narcos, he has begun to appear in supporting roles in mainstream blockbusters such as Alex Garland’s Civil War and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. However, it is this performance that should elevate Moura to the A-list. Deservedly nominated for Best Actor, Moura serves up a slice of old-school cool—the kind of charismatic leading man that dominated classic ’70s cinema, reminiscent of Al Pacino in Serpico or Jack Nicholson in The Passenger.
While Moura grounds the film with his understated central performance, Filho surrounds
him with more idiosyncratic characters, such as Tânia Maria as Dona Sebastiana, the
gravelly-voiced refuge operator, or Roney Villela as the wonderfully mustachioed hitman
Augusto.
The film aims for the gritty edge of a ’70s crime flick, and when it comes to the atmosphere, the look, and the music, The Secret Agent is bang on target. But at 2 hours and 40 minutes, it lacks the economical storytelling of the New Hollywood thrillers that inspired it. If only Filho had been as cold-blooded in killing his darlings as his fictional assassins, this could have been a lean, mean modern classic. The padding also extends to a seriously anticlimactic denouement.
Still, this is a handsome piece of sun-drenched noir, and it proves that when it comes to grown-up, engrossing cinema, audiences will be greatly rewarded by looking beyond Hollywood.
