John Powers

Like a political thriller from the Hollywood 70s, The Secret Agent presents us with an x-ray of society from its highest reaches to its darkest corners.

It's hard to imagine a richer cast of characters, each individualized and respectfully given their humanity.

Be it the hitman who bristles at his employer's offhand racism, the Jewish tailor scarred with World War II bullet holes, the smug tycoon getting rich off the dictatorship, the secretary who has the hots for Marcello, or Marcello's late wife who appears in only one scene.

But she and that scene are lacerating.

Stitching it all together is Mora, whose shapeshifting performance is a triumph of watchful subtlety, so quietly warm and sympathetic that we're with him the whole way.

There may be no better piece of screen acting this year than the one in which Marcelo first meets his fellow residents at Dona Sebastiana's.

Mora's amused, melancholy gaze takes in each of them in a precise, generous way that makes you realize the kind of big soul he actually has.

The secret agent makes clever use of the movie Jaws, which Marcello's son wants to see, even though the poster gives him nightmares.

In a way, Mendonca's movie works like Spielberg's.

We keep wondering, with mounting dread, if and when Marcello will get caught.

But here, of course, the danger comes not from a real shark, but from a political one, a military junta where the rich and powerful feel entitled to crush anyone who merely offends them.

At one point, eluding his pursuers, Marcello steps onto a street filled with carnival-goers ecstatically partying.

He has a drink and briefly joins in the dancing.

And we realize how happy his world could be if only those in power weren't trying to kill him.

Ever since The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston's 1950 film about a jewel robbery, audiences and filmmakers have loved heist movies.

You get the precise laying out of the plan, the robbery itself, the roaring getaway, and the moment that things go wrong.

There's always a snafu.

A good heist movie offers the exacting pleasures of both the crime and the plot unfolding like clockwork.

The clock comes unsprung in The Mastermind, the latest film from Kelly Reichert, whose devoutly un-Hollywood movies are as admired by critics as they are underseen by the public.

Working with a deliberate approach all her own, she here takes the classic heist story, gives it a few tugs and shrugs, and winds up with a funny, sad movie that gets stronger and more original as it goes along.