Violence in The Secret Agent is not impulsive — it is negotiated. And those negotiations reveal everything.

1. The Hit Man as a Transaction, Not a Crime

One of the most disturbing and intelligent ideas in The Secret Agent is how casually violence is treated as a business transaction. The film presents two negotiations, and they are not symmetrical — socially, racially, or morally.

The first negotiation happens in São Paulo.
Two white men negotiate the hiring of a hit man for 40,000 reais. The conversation is cold, bureaucratic, almost corporate. Violence here is expensive, abstract, and distant. It belongs to people who do not pull the trigger, but who control capital, networks, and insulation.

This scene could take place in almost any country. And that is precisely the point.

Kleber Mendonça Filho shows us something global:
in many societies, violence is outsourced, cleaned, delegated. The film treats this not as an exception, but as a normalized practice — similar to how political assassinations, corporate crimes, or paramilitary actions are handled worldwide.

2. Recife: The Price Drops — and So Does Protection

The second negotiation happens in Recife, and this is where the film becomes deeply Brazilian.

The same contract — the same life — is now worth 4,000 reais.
Ten times cheaper.

And crucially, the person who will actually commit the murder is not one of the men who negotiated the first deal. The task is subcontracted — passed down the chain.

This is where The Secret Agent exposes the true structure of power:

• Those at the top negotiate.

• Those in the middle manage.

• Those at the bottom execute — and are fully disposable.

3. The “Capitão do Mato” Figure

The hit man is portrayed by a mixed-race actor, and this casting choice is not incidental.

In Brazilian history, the capitão do mato was the person responsible for hunting down enslaved people who escaped. Often Black or mixed-race themselves, they occupied a violent intermediary position:
oppressed, yet enforcing oppression.

The film does not state this explicitly. It doesn’t need to.
The body, the accent, the behavior — everything communicates it.

This character is not a monster. He is a function.

And that is what makes it so uncomfortable.

4. Acting Beyond Performance: Embodied History

The actors in these scenes are outstanding not just because of their performances, but because of how precisely their bodies occupy social roles.

• The two white contractors don’t behave like criminals.
  They behave like executives.

• The man who will carry out the murder behaves like someone who has done this before — not proudly, not nervously, but professionally.

This is not overacting. It is historical memory embodied.

Kleber Mendonça Filho understands something crucial:
in Brazil, race and class are not abstract ideas — they are performed daily, through posture, speech, silence, and obedience.

5. A Global Practice, a Brazilian Wound

While this kind of hit-man negotiation exists in many countries, The Secret Agent makes clear that Brazil adds a specific historical weight to it.

Here, violence follows old colonial paths.
Money travels one way. Risk travels another.
And the bodies that absorb violence are almost always the same.

The film doesn’t accuse.
It exposes.

Closing Thought

What The Secret Agent ultimately shows is not how murders happen —
but how societies allow themselves to live with them.

By turning death into a negotiation, the film asks a devastating question:

If violence can be priced so easily, who has the privilege of never paying for it?