DUBAI: Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s political thriller may be set during his homeland’s turbulent 1970s — under a military dictatorship that committed extensive human rights abuses — but this ambitious, layered, and beautifully realized movie is loaded with timely reminders of what happens when political violence and moral turpitude are normalized, and — in one memorable fantastical scene — when fake news turns into mass hysteria.

The film follows Marcelo (the compelling Wagner Moura), an academic working in engineering, who discovered that a government minister was shutting down his university department in order to funnel its research into a private company in which the minister owned shares. When Marcelo points out the corruption, he becomes a marked man and must go on the run, leaving his young son with the parents of his late wife. He is moved to a safe house in Recife, run by the sweet-but-steely Dona Sebastiana (an effervescent Tania Maria) on behalf of a resistance group. They find him a job in the government department responsible for issuing ID cards.

Here he meets the despicable Euclides (Roberio Diogenes) — a corrupt cop whose department uses a carnival as cover to carry out extrajudicial murders — and his goons. He also learns that the minister with whom he argued has hired two hitmen to kill him. Time is running out. But soon he should have his fake passport and be able to flee.

“The Secret Agent” is much more than just its plot, though. It is subtle — sometimes oblique, even. It is vivid and darkly humorous. It takes its time, allowing the viewer to wallow in its vibrant colors and equally vibrant soundtrack, but always building tension as it heads towards an inevitable and violent climax. Filho shows such confidence, not just in his own skills, but in the ability of a modern-day audience to still follow stories without having to have everything neatly parceled and dumbed-down.

While the director deserves all the plaudits that have already come his way — and there will surely be more at the Oscars — the cast deserve equal praise, particularly the bad guys. It would’ve been easy to ham it up as pantomime villains. Instead, their casual cruelty is rooted in reality, and all the more sinister for it. Like everything about “The Secret Agent,” they are pitch perfect.