The Secret Agent (2025, R)

With the way timing and availability worked out, it just so happened that I watched all three of the international features on my list in a row. I thought The Secret Agent was well-made, although I can tell there are some nuances I wasn’t getting.

In 1977, Armando sneaks back into his hometown. He wound up on the wrong side of a powerful person, and now his life is in danger. He’s staying in an apartment building filled with people in similar situations, biding their time until they can get out of Brazil with new passports under assumed names.

The Secret Agent is up for four Oscars, including Best International Feature, Best Picture, and Best Leading Actor. It’s a political thriller that feels slow at times, action-packed at others. I thought that made it a little hard to get into the rhythm of it, and at over two-and-a-half hours, I definitely felt its length. I also think I’d have gotten more out of it if I knew more about this period in Brazilian history under the military dictatorship—I could follow the story all right, but I recognized my position as an American dumbass who was watching it on more of a surface level.

That said, I still enjoyed it. I love Dona Sebastiana, the little old lady who runs the apartment refuge. She takes zero prisoners and does whatever needs to be done, but she also will try to hook Armando up with the attractive woman who lives above him. Armando’s relationship with his young son Fernando is quite affecting. Fernando’s been living with his maternal grandparents since his mom died and his dad’s been in hiding. He’s obsessed with wanting to see Jaws, despite everyone pointing out it’s going to give him nightmares, and there’s nothing he wants more than to be with his dad. Additionally, there are some great suspenseful sequences and an absolutely wild attempted hit.

Wagner Moura is the only actor I’m familiar with here, and of course, he got the Best Leading Actor nomination. Needless to say, Armando is a very different character than Pablo Escobar in Narcos, and Moura does a lovely, understated job as an ordinary man who’s been thrust into an extraordinary situation.

Warnings

Violence, disturbing images, sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 1, Episode 8 – “Just Say No” (2018)

*Spoilers for the end of episode 7*

A lot going on in this episode. Pieces are moving around the board to come to a head at the end of the season, and here, we see a major move. But at the same time as the future is being set up, things from the past are still rippling up to the present.

The DEA has just struck the Guadalajara cartel a major blow. They’ve located Rafa’s marijuana fields and seized/burned everything. Everyone is jumpy, but Félix insists that they just keep their heads down. Coke is where the real money is now, so as long as no one does anything stupid, they can take a hit on the fields. But he’s the only one who’s interested in keeping calm. Rafa is equal parts depressed and enraged, Félix’s partners in the government are nervous about exposure, and Amado gets more than he bargained for when he tries to get Acosta on board with the future of Félix’s vision.

We’ll start with Amado and Acosta. In the last episode, Félix made several big unilteral moves within the organization, one of which was to send Amado to Juarez to help manage Acosta’s crochety self. The old trafficker has been stuck in the past, and Amado is both annoyed and impatient as he sets out to modernize the plaza, but things quickly take a turn for the unexpected. I like these scenes because I love how utterly unimpressed Acosta is by Amado—“I don’t listen to a bastard who pisses sitting down,” he says. Likewise, his old-school approach is very hands-on, and while it’s admittedly a waste of resources, there’s something to respect in Acosta’s attitude as he explains, “I don’t send anyone to do shit I can do myself.”

After losing his fields—which accounted for 1/3 of all U.S. marijuana consumption at the time—Rafa is a mess. He already was angry that Félix was neglecting the weed in favor of coke, and now he feels outright betrayed. And his plants, his babies, paid the price. In his anger and grief, Rafa decides to quit coke cold turkey, which is an understandable impulse but pretty wild and ill-advised. This plotline features a hallucination sequence that’s just fantastically done. It manages to be both understated and obvious at the same time, which is quite a feat.

As for Kiki, seizing the fields gives him a big win, and he’s flying high as he hopes for approval on more tangible action from the U.S. government. One of his co-workers is happy at the thought of riding off triumphantly into the sunset with a transfer back to the States, but surprise, surprise, Kiki wants to see what happens next. He doesn’t fully conceptualize the kind of enemies he’s just made.

A big part of Félix’s job is convincing people things are fine when shit goes down. Stop people in-fighting, stop people retaliating, make the promises and trust that the infrastructure he needs to pull it off is going to show up. Here, after a very public show of force by the DEA, he’s consistent on messaging, but nobody’s listening.

He insists that the bust is where the DEA’s case ends, that he’s plugged any leaks and no one else is going down. But when he’s in bed with the Mexican government, the word of a narco who’s just taken a serious hit doesn’t mean much. His government pal is laser-focused on making the problem go away, and Félix’s only goal is trying to convince him not to make things worse in an over-hasty effort to fix them.

One thing I like about Diego Luna’s performance is that, if nothing else, Félix pretty much always maintains a degree of control over himself. He rubs elbows with a lot of people who look down on him, but even when he’s trying not to freak out himself, he clings onto a shred of dignity and is still able to project confidence. When his government friend hints at his plan for a response, Félix shuts him down flatly, refusing to rise to the bait of his insinuations.

“They call you the Godfather. And you’re afraid to get your hands dirty, Félix?” his government pal asks. Steadily, Félix replies, “Not even close. But I am afraid of panic. Turns out it’s bad for business.” As usual, he finds enough calm to do the smart thing instead of the emotional thing. It’s just a question of whether he can get the right people to go along with it.

Other Doctor Lives: Twenty Twelve: Series 1, Episode 6 – “Equestrian Controversy” (2011)

We’ve made it to the series 1 finale. On the whole, I’m enjoying this show, though I haven’t quite been wowed by it—the episodes range from decent to pretty entertaining. Of course, I’m looking forward to seeing Joel Fry when he shows up in some of the series 2 episodes!

The commission finds themselves in a faceoff over their plan to use Greenwich Park for the equestrian events at the Olympics. Former filmmaker and current upstart Tony Ward, head of the Greenwich Anti-Equine Society, does not want to have a bunch of horses trampling through the park, and he stages a provocative protest: namely, a huge mound of horse manure outside their office.

Our final character of the week for this season, and the last of the main cast, is Sally Owen, played by none other than Olivia Colman! (This would’ve been pre-Broadchurch.) Sally is Ian’s personal assistant, with an uncanny ability to anticipate his needs. She also has a habit of going way above and beyond for her boss. We often see Sally do this with food, appearing at meetings with a “little” snack for Ian that tests the limits of his diet.

A couple familiar faces here. Ingrid Oliver (a.k.a. Osgood from Doctor Who) has a small role as AP for a radio program, and the commission’s new nemesis is played by Tim McInnerny, who I still know best as Percy on Blackadder. He’s a hoot in the role, self-important and combative, and we get some fun details about him.

Naturally, a buttoned-up by-the-book guy like Ian isn’t very equipped to deal with Tony's crude brand of warfare. When he comes into the office on Monday morning, he confers with Sally, “So we have a giant pile of horseshit on the pavement outside,” adding, “I’m assuming that’s not by accident?” Tony vs. Ian is like a cold front meeting a tepid glass of milk, which makes for an interesting matchup.

Some fun narration today from David Tennant! Here are the highlights:

• I love this description about Tony – “After the success of Intravenous, Ward had a spell in Hollywood, where he made almost two other films in the 1980s, before returning to London to make a series of commercially less successful, but highly personal marriages.”
• Hee! – “It’s Tuesday morning, and as Ian arrives for work, there’s good news and bad news in the horse manure department.”