What to watch: Thrilling ‘The Secret Agent’ a brilliant look at corruption

A casual disregard for human life contrasts with a colorful hard-partyin atmosphere of Carnaval in Brazil in The Secret Agent director Kleber Mendon a Filho s momentous epic a mercurial adventure in filmmaking that reminds us of how dangerous but significant it can be to resist an unjust system Secret Agent also urges us to be aware of the swath of corruption that settles in places high and low and to respect and embrace the bloodlines that flow through us Yes that s a lot to stuff into one film even a brilliant bravura work such as this one that clocks in at hours But the length is worth it Filho makes it all seem so airy and breezy even as it plays around with shifting time periods a tack that keeps audiences on their toes as the plot details reveal themselves in snippets Wagner Moura hits all the right notes as wary-eyed Marcelo a widower now designated an unwelcome stranger in his homeland since he mouthed off to a corrupt businessman with oodles of loot Moura s modulated performance his best yet never announces that its being brilliant in all of the film s unnerving spaces yet it takes little nips at your heart as Marcelo seeks refuge in an apartment building in Recife north-east Brazil so he can be near his son who is living with his grandparents Marcelo is on a search of his own but the less revealed about that the better He shares those apartment digs with a two-faced cat and a tightly wound small group of refugees leading double lives and trying to not attract the attention of on-the-take cops executive goons and violent entrepreneurs That context might sound a false alarm that The Secret Agent is dour and depressing It isn t even though it will punch you in the gut every now and then Filho offsets the downer moments with off-kilter humor and one of the bulk surreal and comical chase scenes you ll ever see He also establishes what living in these volatile times was like That goal becomes apparent from the very start with a trapped-breath opening sequence that finds Marcelo stopping at a rundown gas station where there s a corpse a sparse feet away from the pumps It s sorta covered up by a deconstructed cardboard box and has been sitting there and attracting flies No one cares even the cops After getting coerced by officers to give them a few money Marcelo hops back into his yellow a color used often to represent upcoming danger VW bug on the way to see his son Filho doesn t reveal upfront the circumstances that led Marcelo to being forced into a duplicitous life and that delayed tactic gives it more emotional weight once revealed One of the biggest treats in the film is how it pays homage to movies of its era The Omen and in particular Jaws While those films pushed audiences out into treacherous imagined waters the world has flooded itself with imminent horrors that rival those put forth on film as Filho so craftily shows The Secret Agent serves as a warning shot about in the modern day and is rife with Filho relishing in surprising audiences his calling card That leads to a masterful epilogue that shook me and moved me to my core This is great filmmaking THE SECRET AGENT stars out of Rating R strong bloody violence sexual content language chosen full nudity Starring Wagner Moura Writer director Kleber Mendon a Filho Running time hours minutes Details stars stars out of in select theaters Dec expands on Dec