REINVENTING THRILLS IN BRAZIL

From the tense opening scene of a random police check at a rural petrol station, writer-director Kleber Mendonca Filho's Oscar-nominated political thriller exerted a sustained chokehold on my attention.

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Former university researcher and dissident Armando Solimoes (Wagner Moura) adopts the name Marcelo Alves to escape retribution at the hands of the brutal military dictatorship in 1970s Brazil, and figures like power company board member Henrique Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli).

Ghirotti hires former military officer Augusto (Roney Villela) and his stepson Bobbi (Gabriel Leone) to kill Armando.