The Secret Agent's reviews
Media reviews
Variety
The Brazilian helmer’s dazzling period drama reveals a surprising underground support network operating during the country’s dictatorship, when human lives were deemed expendable.
The Hollywood Reporter
The rogue limb is a clever metaphor for the regime’s persecution of the queer community, among other groups, including dope-smokers, longhairs and anyone else who might be automatically branded as a communist. The entire scene is a brilliant comic set-piece, starting with the gorgeous sight of chonky capybaras grazing in a field at night before shifting to the park, where all that al fresco friskiness is rudely interrupted when the leg strides into action.
The Wrap
Does it all hold together? Nope. “The Secret Agent” is all over the place – not literally, since like almost all of Filho’s films, it takes place in the Brazilian city of Recife, his hometown – and cohesiveness or coherence are not high on its list of attributes. But its messiness is part of its charm and part of the point; a film that took itself more seriously than this one wouldn’t let a climactic gun battle turn into an almost cartoonish grand guignol splatter-fest.