For It Is Man's Number: wagner moura

Showing posts with label wagner moura. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 August 2026

Netflix And Chill: The Last House (2026)

Best known for the many action movies that he's helmed (some great, many not so great), director Louis Leterrier here turns his hand to something a bit more mysterious and dramatic. But he then has to throw some hard-to-follow action into the third act.

The story is quite simple. A family find themselves locked inside their own home. It seems to have been sealed by the rain. And it also seems to have happened to everyone else. The first few days are easy enough to tolerate, but things become very difficult as days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. The family are all alone . . . but they're not really alone. Not whenever the rain starts again.

Having Wagner Moura and Greta Lee in the two main roles here is a big help. Both are very good, and they make it a lot easier to believe in the implausible premise for a decent amount of the runtime. The actors playing their children also do well, with the younger performers (Riley Chung and Alexander Sosnowski) being slightly superior to those who take over the roles (Emma Ho and Gabriel Barbosa) after a time jump.

Leterrier does a decent job of keeping things well-paced throughout the first hour, and the screenplay from Matthew Robinson mixes some tension in with a lot of fun. It's just a shame that, like so many features today, this has to go on for just under two hours. It's actually 112 minutes, but feels a bit longer as the whole thing loses momentum once it starts to deliver the more predictable moments (someone always ends up needing medicine in a post-apocalyptic scenario, and there's a very standard creature feature ending that leads up to a frankly preposterous final revelation). There's also some voiceover narration that really doesn't work.

I doubt many will enjoy this. If you're intrigued by the idea of the family trying to survive while locked in their own home then you won't enjoy when the plot moves sideways. If you're after something more exciting then you won't enjoy all the time spent watching the family trying to survive while locked in their own home. As easily pleased as I am, I even spent some time wondering "when did the toothpaste run out?" and "how have the kids got clothes that still fit them as they have grown older?", questions which wouldn't have popped into my head if I had been more immersed in the film.

And, despite the fact that I usually forget to note such things, animal lovers would be advised to stay away from this. There's quite a lot of animal death here, enough to create what amounts to a montage of hunting/killing as Moura's character creates what he calls "chimney fishing" in an attempt to help keep the family from starving to death.

Maybe worth a single viewing for those with nothing else to watch. I enjoyed more than half of it, but my criticisms and questions were certainly not answered satisfactorily by the time it ended.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Monday, 20 April 2026

Mubi Monday: The Secret Agent (2025)

Knowing the praise and awards recognition it received throughout the past year or so, I went into The Secret Agent with a few expectations. I'm pleased to say that it still managed to surprise and impress me, and there may be quite a bit more to it than you've already heard.

It's 1977, Brazil. Wagner Moura plays a man forced to change his identity and keep himself relatively hidden away. He was once a professor, but has found himself caught up in something that puts him seriously at odds with people who have power, money, and the means to dispose of anyone resisting them. That's really all you need to know about this.

Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, who always impresses me with his features while never really doing as well in his short films, The Secret Agent is a masterful look at the ingenuity and connections of people doing their absolute best to survive, and fight back against, any dangerous regime that makes use of co-opted military and corrupt police forces to persecute those who find themselves marked as an enemy simply because of their opposing ideas. It has a gorgeous texture throughout that keeps viewers very much grounded in the time and place, and makes great use of Moura in a role that could very convincingly be chosen as his best yet (from his movie roles anyway).

Moura is impossible not to root for, helped by the fact that his character seems intent on trying to do the right thing without endangering too many others around him. He's cautious, but ultimately tries to live a normal life in extraordinary circumstances. Luciano Chirolli is very believable as one of many bad men who isn't used to things not going his way, Robério Diógenes is the kind of corrupt authority figure who believes he is a friend to many, and others trying to maintain a strong resistance are played by Tânia Maria, Maria Fernanda Cândido, and Hermila Guedes.

The 161-minute runtime may put off some viewers, but it never once felt as if it dragged. This is a film that carefully guides viewers into territory that becomes increasingly dark and dangerous, allowing them to acclimatise to the way life is lived by those onscreen, and then keeps offering small slices of hope even as things become more dangerous.

The structure shows the importance of keeping history known, and how we have to rely on the people who work hard to connect all of the dots and dive deeper into family histories and personal stories that intersect with crucial moments of political strife, to put it midly. It's a look at state-sanctioned violence that inevitably leaves scars across at least one entire generation, but it's equally a look at the light sometimes so hard to make out when it's at the end of such a long tunnel. And it has moments involving a dismembered leg that will have some scratching their heads, but it all makes complete sense if you know about the time period, or if you do a bit of research once the film is over. I did the latter, and am glad that I did.

I might not think to rewatch this often, especially considering the extended runtime, but if I ever do . . . I'll enjoy it just as much, inspecting every sequence for more details and nuances that help to make the whole thing feel absolutely authentic without ever dulling the brilliantly cinematic storytelling on display.

9/10

Friday, 2 August 2024

Civil War (2024)

When I first heard that Alex Garland was delivering a movie titled "Civil War" I had to prepare myself for the inevitable disappointment that it probably wouldn't be a cinematic homage to the great Guns 'n' Roses track from the Use Your Illusion II album. Strangely, I didn't expect to sit through the end credits while wishing that Garland HAD done that. Because that would have been better than this, as far as I'm concerned.

What you have here, unsurprisingly enough, is a tale of a civil war. This particular civil war is happening across the USA though, and it may well end with the capture of the President (Nick Offerman). A number of war correspondents and photo-journalists are travelling across the country as they document the unfolding events, with Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura) ultimately shielding and mentoring young Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), and the film shows how these characters try to remain observers only in a war that will be decided by those actively participating.

I like Garland, having been a fan of his since becoming aware of him through his collaboraions with Danny Boyle, but his directorial career seems to show the output of a man who consistently has one great idea or image that he then tries, and fails, to build a movie around. Civil War is most effective in THAT scene, you know it from the trailer, but nothing else comes close to that, despite the fact that the central premise should be ripe with the potential for commentary on where sowing seeds of division and discontent can lead.

I have more to say about this, but let me mention the cast first. Dunst and Moura feel wasted, they don't have to respond to events around them with anything other than an interest in how it can serve their own purpose, and it's up to Spaeny to make up for their disappointingly flat performances. Thankfully, Spaeny has already proven to me that she can shine in lacklustre material (e.g. see her be fantastic in the not-so-fantastic Priscilla), and she would be the best thing here if it wasn't for one scene being completely stolen by a terrifying Jesse Plemons. Stephen McKinley Henderson also does well with his screentime, but those are very small crumbs on the side of a main dish that is sadly undercooked and unseasoned.

I don’t fault the cast though. This is Garland’s film, and he is responsible for hanging his actors out to dry. Sadly unable to depict any of the politics and behaviours that would lead to such a situation, Garland just decides to make the film about the idea of people allowing bad things to happen by simply doing nothing, or not doing enough, to stop them. He assembles people around him who would have been more than up to the task of delivering something more thought-provoking and challenging, but all we end up getting are a couple of well-shot moments and some very good music from Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury.

Maybe Garland has one more truly great movie in him, but it is becoming more doubtful with every new feature he directs. Maybe he should return to writing, and leave the directing to those who are more capable of taking risks and piecing together individual moments into an end result that is more than the sum of its parts.

3/10