• Latest
  • Trending
The Secret Agent Review

The Secret Agent Review: Carnival, Conspiracy, and a Father’s Flight

Bound Review

Bound Review: Superb Acting in a Fractured Story

The Ruse Review

The Ruse Review: Veronica Cartwright’s Lonely Triumph

System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review

System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review: Still the King of Sci-Fi Horror

Things Like This Review

Things Like This Review: Two Zacks and a World of Insecurity

Franklin Season 1 Review

Franklin Season 1 Review: A Beautiful, Empty Shell

Snakes and Ladders Season 1

Snakes and Ladders Season 1 Review: Manolo Caro’s Candy-Coated Corruption

E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea Beatrice Minger Review

E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea Beatrice Minger Review: Reclaiming a Place in History

SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Review

SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Review: Anxiety in Pixel Form

Absolute Dominion Review

Absolute Dominion Review: A Grand Idea Trapped in a Small Room

Feed Review

Feed Review: Don’t Like or Subscribe

John Travolta

Travolta Lights Up Hollywood Bowl in Surprise Danny Zuko Cameo

10 hours ago
Rainn Wilson Steve Carell

Rainn Wilson Says The Office “Chaotic” After Carell Exit

10 hours ago
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Gazettely Review Guidelines
Sunday, June 29, 2025
GAZETTELY
  • Home
  • Movie and TV News
    John Travolta

    Travolta Lights Up Hollywood Bowl in Surprise Danny Zuko Cameo

    Rainn Wilson Steve Carell

    Rainn Wilson Says The Office “Chaotic” After Carell Exit

    Sydney Sweeney

    Sydney Sweeney Risks Broken Nose for Christy Martin Biopic

    Joshua Jackson

    Mighty Ducks Stars Hand Off Anaheim’s First-Round Pick at NHL Draft

    Hilary Swank

    Cobra Kai Bosses Detail Failed Hilary Swank Cameo Bid

    Grosse Pointe Garden Society

    NBC Kills Grosse Pointe Garden Society After One Season

    Mark Hamill

    Mark Hamill’s Untold Luke Skywalker Tragedy Emerges

    Henry Golding

    Henry Golding Calls Bond Bid “A Nightmare” as Amazon’s 007 Overhaul Accelerates

    squid game season 3

    Netflix Crowns ‘Squid Game’ Finale No. 1 as Creator Weighs Spinoff

  • Movie and TV Reviews
    Bound Review

    Bound Review: Superb Acting in a Fractured Story

    The Ruse Review

    The Ruse Review: Veronica Cartwright’s Lonely Triumph

    Things Like This Review

    Things Like This Review: Two Zacks and a World of Insecurity

    Franklin Season 1 Review

    Franklin Season 1 Review: A Beautiful, Empty Shell

    Snakes and Ladders Season 1

    Snakes and Ladders Season 1 Review: Manolo Caro’s Candy-Coated Corruption

    E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea Beatrice Minger Review

    E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea Beatrice Minger Review: Reclaiming a Place in History

    Absolute Dominion Review

    Absolute Dominion Review: A Grand Idea Trapped in a Small Room

    Feed Review

    Feed Review: Don’t Like or Subscribe

    Stand Your Ground Review

    Stand Your Ground Review: All Action, No Substance

  • Game Reviews
    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review: Still the King of Sci-Fi Horror

    SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Review

    SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Review: Anxiety in Pixel Form

    Islands & Trains Review

    Islands & Trains Review: A Minimalist Escape

    PaperKlay Review

    PaperKlay Review: Fun, Flawed, and Full of Heart

    Projected Dreams Review

    Projected Dreams Review: Illuminating a Beautiful Story

    Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn Review

    Tom Clancy’s The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn Review: A Nostalgic But Flawed Homecoming

    9 Kings Review

    9 Kings Review: Seven Monarchs, Endless Strategic Possibilities

    Rematch Review

    Rematch Review: Sloclap’s Ambitious Football Experiment Falls Short of Goals

    Chronicles of the Wolf Review

    Chronicles of the Wolf Review: Forging a Path Through the Past

  • The Bests
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Movie and TV News
    John Travolta

    Travolta Lights Up Hollywood Bowl in Surprise Danny Zuko Cameo

    Rainn Wilson Steve Carell

    Rainn Wilson Says The Office “Chaotic” After Carell Exit

    Sydney Sweeney

    Sydney Sweeney Risks Broken Nose for Christy Martin Biopic

    Joshua Jackson

    Mighty Ducks Stars Hand Off Anaheim’s First-Round Pick at NHL Draft

    Hilary Swank

    Cobra Kai Bosses Detail Failed Hilary Swank Cameo Bid

    Grosse Pointe Garden Society

    NBC Kills Grosse Pointe Garden Society After One Season

    Mark Hamill

    Mark Hamill’s Untold Luke Skywalker Tragedy Emerges

    Henry Golding

    Henry Golding Calls Bond Bid “A Nightmare” as Amazon’s 007 Overhaul Accelerates

    squid game season 3

    Netflix Crowns ‘Squid Game’ Finale No. 1 as Creator Weighs Spinoff

  • Movie and TV Reviews
    Bound Review

    Bound Review: Superb Acting in a Fractured Story

    The Ruse Review

    The Ruse Review: Veronica Cartwright’s Lonely Triumph

    Things Like This Review

    Things Like This Review: Two Zacks and a World of Insecurity

    Franklin Season 1 Review

    Franklin Season 1 Review: A Beautiful, Empty Shell

    Snakes and Ladders Season 1

    Snakes and Ladders Season 1 Review: Manolo Caro’s Candy-Coated Corruption

    E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea Beatrice Minger Review

    E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea Beatrice Minger Review: Reclaiming a Place in History

    Absolute Dominion Review

    Absolute Dominion Review: A Grand Idea Trapped in a Small Room

    Feed Review

    Feed Review: Don’t Like or Subscribe

    Stand Your Ground Review

    Stand Your Ground Review: All Action, No Substance

  • Game Reviews
    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review: Still the King of Sci-Fi Horror

    SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Review

    SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim Review: Anxiety in Pixel Form

    Islands & Trains Review

    Islands & Trains Review: A Minimalist Escape

    PaperKlay Review

    PaperKlay Review: Fun, Flawed, and Full of Heart

    Projected Dreams Review

    Projected Dreams Review: Illuminating a Beautiful Story

    Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn Review

    Tom Clancy’s The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn Review: A Nostalgic But Flawed Homecoming

    9 Kings Review

    9 Kings Review: Seven Monarchs, Endless Strategic Possibilities

    Rematch Review

    Rematch Review: Sloclap’s Ambitious Football Experiment Falls Short of Goals

    Chronicles of the Wolf Review

    Chronicles of the Wolf Review: Forging a Path Through the Past

  • The Bests
No Result
View All Result
GAZETTELY
No Result
View All Result
The Secret Agent Review

Football Parents Season 1 Review: Sideline Satire with Heart

Sony Greenlights ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’ With Shemar Moore Returning as Hondo

Home Entertainment Movies

The Secret Agent Review: Carnival, Conspiracy, and a Father’s Flight

Shahrbanoo Golmohamadi by Shahrbanoo Golmohamadi
1 month ago
in Entertainment, Movies, Reviews
Reading Time: 5 mins read
A A
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on PinterestShare on WhatsAppShare on Telegram

1977 Recife unfolds as a living organism: sweat-soaked streets pulse with Carnival drums while the long arm of Brazil’s military dictatorship flexes its power. Into this fevered tableau arrives Marcelo, a reserved technology researcher traveling under an alias, determined to reunite with his young son.

What begins as a fugitive’s silent flight quickly morphs into a labyrinthine odyssey through back-alley safe houses and clandestine apartment blocks. Amid the roar of costumed revelers, absurdist shocks—a human leg surfacing from a shark’s belly, a two-faced cat prowling secret corridors—inject moments of dark humor that thrill and disquiet in equal measure.

From the moment Marcelo smooth-talks an indifferent highway officer to the instant he steps into a dimly lit identification office, the film’s alchemy of suspense and surreal detours stakes its claim: this is a period thriller that breathes, bleeds, and revels in its own richly textured sense of time and place.

Narrative & Thematic Architecture

The story vaults straight into tension with Marcelo’s roadside arrival: a half-covered corpse decays under the sun while two apathetic policemen demand hush money. That in medias res moment signals a world where life is cheap and authority is arbitrary. Marcelo’s escape leads him to Recife’s heart, where Carnival’s euphoric chaos cloaks a tight-knit resistance network. Here, under the watchful eye of a 77-year-old matriarch, he and his son find shelter—and the first glimmers of hope.

The Secret Agent Review

By day, Marcelo assumes a desk at the Identification Records Office, hunting for proof of his mother’s long-erased existence. This quest threads through dusty archives, revealing how regimes distort history by silencing individual narratives. Meanwhile, the rumor-milled “hairy leg”—pulled from shark carcasses, whispered in tabloid headlines, and imagined rampaging through gay cruising grounds—grows into a grotesque metaphor for state-sanctioned persecution, its absurdity underscoring genuine terror.

As two contract killers close in and a corrupt police chief straddles loyalty and self-interest, tension tightens like a noose. Then, in a series of present-day vignettes, a researcher transcribes cassette recordings that piece together Marcelo’s fate. When adult Fernando unearths the past, the narrative threads of exile, belonging, and generational legacy snap into focus: history, once nearly expunged, resurfaces through bloodlines and cassette tape’s static hiss.

Character & Performance Analysis

Walter Moura’s Marcelo is a study in quiet magnetism. With soulful eyes and measured restraint, he inhabits every scene with a sense of concealed power—equal parts charming interlocutor and furtive survivor. His transformation from composed outsider to desperate father unfolds in understated shifts: a tightened jaw here, a lingering glance there.

The Secret Agent Review

Beside him, young Fernando brings both comic relief and poignant vulnerability. His Jaws-inspired drawings and wide-eyed curiosity become emblematic of innocence in peril; moments of shared silence between father and son—whether over a whispered bedtime ritual or a sudden Carnival hush—deepen their bond without a word spoken.

The eclectic community surrounding them anchors the film’s heart. Dona Sebastiana, the steely-eyed matriarch, exudes warmth that belies decades of lurking danger; her apartment block household of Angolan exiles, queer runaways, and embattled academics forms a surrogate family whose solidarity resonates long after the credits.

Opposite this sanctuary stand the antagonists: two contract killers whose silent menace punctuates the film’s most taut sequences, and the local police chief whose uneasy patronage of Marcelo underscores the regime’s paradoxical cruelty. Small yet vivid cameos—Udo Kier’s bullet-scarred German exile, a demonic possession at an Omen screening, the two-headed Janus cat—add layers of eccentricity that never dilute the stakes but instead illuminate the regime’s surreal grip on daily life.

Technical & Artistic Craft

Cinematographer Pedro Sousa’s use of Panavision anamorphic lenses bathes every frame in sun-bleached saturation, evoking 1970s film stock while capturing Recife’s riotous color palette. Vintage VW bugs rumble down crowded avenues; cramped identification offices gleam with bureaucratic dread; shuttered movie palaces loom like relics of communal memory. Production and costume design converge to recreate a city in mid-turbulence, from bell-bottomed revelers to peeling propaganda posters.

The Secret Agent Review

The soundscape oscillates between the relentless pulse of Carnival brass and moments of mournful hush. Brazilian stompers collide with period American hits—Donna Summer’s breathy moans, Chicago’s plaintive ballads—while tape-deck clicks and distant street vendors ground the film in analog authenticity.

Editing strikes a delicate balance: languid long takes linger on human faces and architectural detail, then snap into sudden absurdist jolts—a zombie leg materializing in midnight foliage—heightening the uncanny undercurrent. The dual timelines, past and present, weave together seamlessly, each cut guided by the hiss of cassette recordings.

At its core, the film bears Kleber Mendonça Filho’s unmistakable vision: a restless curiosity for how political reality and playful horror entwine. Carnival serves both as euphoric spectacle and camouflage for state violence, a carnival mirror reflecting the absurd lengths to which power will go to erase dissent. In this vibrant sémiotique, celebration and subterfuge share the same drumbeat.

The Secret Agent premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2025, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or.

Full Credits

Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Writer: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Producers: Emilie Lesclaux, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Wagner Moura, Brent Travers

Co-Producers: Sol Bondy, Fred Burle, Erik Glijnis, Leontine Petit, Olivier Père

Executive Producer: Dora Amorim

Cast: Wagner Moura, Udo Kier, Gabriel Leone, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Thomás Aquino, Hermila Guedes, Isabél Zuaa, Alice Carvalho, João Vitor Silva, Suzy Lopes, Rubens Santos

Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Evgenia Alexandrova

Editors: Matheus Farias, Eduardo Serrano

Composers: Mateus Alves, Tomaz Alves Souza

The Review

The Secret Agent

9 Score

The Secret Agent immerses you in a carnival dream gone awry, where political dread and absurdist detours fuse into a vibrant, haunting mosaic. Moura’s still intensity grounds a narrative that effortlessly balances suspense, humor, and cultural memory. This richly layered thriller confirms Mendonça Filho’s gift for reshaping history through genre’s lens.

PROS

  • Riveting blend of political thriller and surreal humor
  • Walter Moura’s magnetic, understated lead performance
  • Lush Panavision visuals that vividly evoke 1977 Recife
  • Soundtrack mixes Carnival rhythms with era-defining pop
  • Rich thematic layers on memory, exile, and resistance

CONS

  • Nearly 2¾-hour runtime can feel indulgent
  • Occasional narrative digressions test patience
  • Dual timelines may momentarily disrupt pacing
  • Heavy ensemble cast can dilute focus on Marcelo

Review Breakdown

  • Overall 0
Tags: 2025 Cannes Film FestivalAlice CarvalhoArte France CinémaBlack Rabbit MediaCinemaScópio ProduçõesDramaFeaturedGabriel LeoneHermila GuedesIsabél ZuaaItapoanJoão Vitor SilvaKleber Mendonça FilhoMaria Fernanda CândidoMK ProductionsPoliticalSuzy LopesThe Secret AgentThomás AquinoThrillerUdo KierVitrine FilmesWagner Moura
Previous Post

Football Parents Season 1 Review: Sideline Satire with Heart

Next Post

Sony Greenlights ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’ With Shemar Moore Returning as Hondo

Try AI Movie Recommender

Gazettely AI Movie Recommender

This Week's Top Reads

  • Smoke Review

    Smoke Review: The Year’s Most Unpredictable and Unsettling Show

    7 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Boglands Review: Shadows and Whispers in the Irish Mist

    2 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Mix Tape Review: A Story Told on Two Sides of a Cassette

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Love Island USA Season 7 Review: Summer’s Hottest Guilty Pleasure Returns

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Alma and the Wolf Review: Ethan Embry Shines in a Flawed Fever Dream

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • She’s Got No Name Review: A Moving Tale of Empathy and Survival

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The Waterfront Review: Kevin Williamson’s Return to Murky Family Waters

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Must Read Articles

Heads of State Review
Movies

Heads of State Review: Elba and Cena Carry the Ticket

2 days ago
Squid Game Season 3 Review
Entertainment

Squid Game Season 3 Review: No Happy Endings Here

2 days ago
Love Island USA Season 7 Review
Entertainment

Love Island USA Season 7 Review: Summer’s Hottest Guilty Pleasure Returns

3 days ago
The Bear Season 4 Review
Entertainment

The Bear Season 4 Review: A Contemplative, Cathartic Final Course

3 days ago
Surviving Ohio State Review
Movies

Surviving Ohio State Review: The Weight of Witness

4 days ago
Loading poll ...
Coming Soon
Who is the best director in the horror thriller genre?

Gazettely is your go-to destination for all things gaming, movies, and TV. With fresh reviews, trending articles, and editor picks, we help you stay informed and entertained.

© 2021-2024 All Rights Reserved for Gazettely

What’s Inside

  • Movie & TV Reviews
  • Game Reviews
  • Featured Articles
  • Latest News
  • Editorial Picks

Quick Links

  • Home
  • About US
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Review Guidelines

Follow Us

Facebook X-twitter Youtube Instagram
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Movies
  • Entertainment News
  • Movie and TV Reviews
  • TV Shows
  • Game News
  • Game Reviews
  • Contact Us

© 2024 All Rights Reserved for Gazettely

Go to mobile version