Editor’s Note: For Freeline Media movie critic Mike Fried is reviewing some 5 Star films — in his view. Do you agree with Mike’s assessment? Let us know, and Read on!

By MIKE FRIED

FIVE STAR FILMS-NEW AND OLD

THE SECRET AGENT (2025)

*****

In 1977 Brazil, former professor and widower Armando travels during Carnivale to Recife, where his young son Fernando has been living with his in-laws since the death of his wife, Fátima Nascimento. He adopts the name Marcelo and befriends other political dissidents. Marcelo is placed in a job in the identity card office by the dissidents and he has a meeting with the corrupt police chief Euclides, who offers him his friendship. Meanwhile, two hitmen are hired to kill Armando by a man who was a personal and political vendetta against him. 

This neo-noir political thriller is truly one of the best films of 2025. Like The Secret in Their Eyes or Argentinia, 1985 it fully captures the feel of the upheaval during the military dictatorship of the late 1970’s in Brazil.  

Wagner Moura is absolutely amazing as Armando/Marcelo. He brings a weariness to his role, weary from exhaustion, from fighting the good fight. He deserved his Cannes Best Actor award and his nomination for the Oscar in the same category. His incredulity when he hears that two hitmen are after him is palpable, but it is affected by the same disbelief that he has been viewing his life in recent months. And his acting is great. There are no big speeches, nothing bombastic, no Oscar-clip moments, if you will — and despite this, he delivers one of the years’ best performances.  

Luciano Chirolli is equally outstanding as Ghirotti, the criminal who has been disrespected and who must now have his vengeance. When he says he has Italian blood, you can feel the threat emanate from within him — and it’s no less effective than when Michael Corleone says something quietly.  

And I’d be totally remiss if I did not note the spot on performance — and final one — of the great Udo Kier, who plays a man named Hans who is constantly thought to have been a Nazi but who is, in reality, a Jew who was tortured in the war. He is fully disrespectful to the crooked police chief and cannot hide his hatred. It is a truly great last performance, even in its brevity. 

Besides Moura, the film belongs to writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who has created an extraordinary (if long) meditation on the turmoil of his country back when he was a child. Taking place during Carnival was a stroke of genius as the loud raucous celebration provides the perfect contrapuntal note to the quietude with which Armando goes through his life. And including an opening which involves a man’s leg being taken out of a shark provides a unique moment of hilarity two-thirds of the way through the film.  

He even starts off the film with a homage to Once Upon a Time in the West, which takes place at a solitary gas station at which a dead body lays outside. Armando’s encounter with the police, as docile as it is, is so covertly menacing that it sets the tone for the rest of the film. 

The production design evokes late 70s Brazil and the poverty that ripped through the nation; the cinematography looks like it was filmed during the late 1970s with a bit of washed out colors. It looks fantastic.  

But by setting the movie some 50 years ago, the movie gains momentum because of current world events. 

And the movie itself propels Armando and ourselves to a slam-bang — and bittersweet — finale. 

WATCH IT!

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (2025)

*****

A man is driving through the Iranian desert with his family when he hits a dog. His car needs to be looked at. So he stops at a mechanic shop down the road. The mechanic is named Vahid who recognizes the man from the sound his prosthetic leg makes. Vahid thinks the sound is coming from Eghbal, his torturer in an Iranian prison. The next day, he kidnaps him but the man denies being Eghbal and says that his wounds are recent. Very confused, Vahid pulls together some of his fellow ex-prisoners to help him identify the man as Eghbal. 

To me, this is Jafar Panahi’s greatest film, one of absolute entertainment but also one of stubborn resistance to an authoritarian regime that has prevented him from making movies. His films have been banned or censored in Iran and in 2010 he was sentenced to 6 years in prison with a 20 year ban on making movies. This is his 7th film made during his ban — all of which have been made clandestinely and without permit — and it is his most impactful. His prior films have made their points subtly. Not this one. It is Panahi at his most searingly confrontational.  

The biggest question is that “Is there a morality in vengeance?” As his friend Salar tells him, “We are not killers. We are not like them. There’s no need to dig their graves. They have done that themselves. It would be your ideals you’d be burying.”  

And Panahi refuses to bury his ideals. Or his humor. This movie is also kind of funny — in a bleakly dark sort of way. Vahid goes along like a mope and, in seeking confirmation, he is inadvertently causing grief and opening old wounds among his fellow ex-prisoners. As the back of the van carrying Eghbal (“peg leg”) fills with ex-prisoners we have a photographer and her clients who are dressed in their wedding clothes as they are getting married the following day. When there is a commotion in the van, some official looking types come over and want to see what’s going on in the van. But they hint at being able to accept a bribe and bring out a portable credit card terminal. The scene of all of the passengers — including the bride and groom in their wedding clothes — pushing the van which has run out of gas is one of the most hysterical things I have seen in a serious film in a long time. 

But it goes even deeper. These people who want revenge are still human and they need to retain their humanity. And they’re given the tools to do that. But are they too late? 

By doing so he has created not only a great piece about the corruption of the Iranian regime but also has parsed together a terrifically effective thriller that keeps one’s eyes glued to the screen.  

This is deservedly nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film (France) but is up against strong competition from Brazil’s The Secret Agent and Norway’s Sentimental Value (which won). But this film has one thing that those two don’t have: a director who puts his life on the line to make his point. I’d vote for this film. 

WATCH IT! 

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON   2023

*****

This is Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece. 

I’m not going to say that it’s my favorite movie of his but, goddamn, this is his freaking masterpiece. It shows how Marty has taken everything that he has learned from his 50-plus years of filmmaking and put it on display. 

Despite its length — which I admit, got to me a bit in parts — I felt that it needed to be as long as it was to fully flush out what occurred to the Osage tribe.

A lot has been made about the length of the movie, but quite frankly, it was necessary. (And thanks to Flowmax, I was able to make it through the entire picture!!) Scorsese has put together a story about White Privilege and Greed that is a love story, a gangster picture, a crime thriller and a courtroom drama of such depth and emotion that to make it any less would be doing it a disservice. 

Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro give their all as Ernest Burkhart and William Hale and in a way, their relationship is a southern fried version of the relationship between Henry Hill and Ray Liotta. There’s even a scene in the courtroom section of the movie that directly mirrors a scene from Goodfellas.

But this movie when all is said and done belongs to Lily Gladstone, who must be involved in the Oscar conversations come this spring, as Molly Burkhart, the Osage woman who marries Ernest. She is the powering force in this movie the emotion she shows throughout is phenomenal. She loves Ernest but she loves her ancestors as well and she bears the brunt of the violence in the picture because greedy people wanted to have the money that the Osage got once oil was found on their land.

The rest of the cast, in this picture is absolutely fantastic, and it was nice seeing Jesse Plemons, Pat Healy, Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow (for whom working with Scorsese was a ‘bucket list” item) show up and the movie is also a fitting tribute to the legacy of Robbie Robertson, who composed the riveting and energetic score.

“There might be a public outcry, for a while,” William Hale whispers. “But then you know what happens? People forget. They don’t remember, they don’t care. They just don’t care. It’s just going to be another everyday common tragedy.”

Marty remembers and Marty cares. That’s why this is his masterpiece. 

On a rewatch the film becomes more complex and more of a masterpiece. The parallels to goodfellas are evident throughout the film.  

De Niro’s performance — while still great — comes across a bit more wooden than the first time; or if not wooden, duplicative of Max Cady and Jimmy Conway. 

DiCaprio’s performance gets so much better on second viewing.  Some critics felt DiCaprio was miscast as Ernest Burkhart but I think he pulled off a master stroke performance — that of an idiot with no brain of his own, a guy who could have been good but who fell in with a bad crowd and found himself too easy to influence because he just was not that smart.  And he plays the boob to perfection.  I feel no pity for his character as he proves time and again that he knows the difference between right and wrong but he does nothing to prevent the bad. 

And in my previous review I said Lily Gladstone had to be in the Oscar conversation. Having watched her a second time, it was a crime that she did not win the Oscar. 

And Criterion’s 4k really does this justice.

WATCH IT!

TIN MEN  (1987)

*****

Another one of Barry Levinson’s cycle of Baltimore films, this is one of his best.

It’s 1963. A minor traffic accident propels two men to go to outrageous lengths to get back at one another. And to top it off they are both “tin men,” or aluminum siding salesmen. And complicating matters is that in between trying to make sales they got the goddamned home improvement commission breathing down their necks. 

A purely comedic character study, it is powered by two should-have-been-nominated performances from Richard Dreyfuss (who was better in this film than in The Goodbye Girl) and Danny DeVito, whose performance is one of his best and when he has pain it really shows. Working off Levinson’s brilliantly written script, this movie gives its 2 stars the goods to shine. Dreyfuss plays Bill Babowsky, a successful salesman and DeVito plays Tilley, a down on his luck tin man. As they attempt to get the better of each other they find their lives inexplicably intertwined. And it comes to a head in an absolutely hysterical breaking and entering scene.  

And the supporting cast truly supports. Stocked with such veterans as Barbara Hershey, John Mahoney — in his breakout role along with Moonstruck — Seymour Cassel, JT Walsh, Bruno Kirby, Richard Portnow, Brad Sullivan, Levinson regular Ralph Tabakin and Michael Tucker (playing the same role from Levinson’s prior hit Diner), everyone joins in the fun. None so much as Catskills comedian Jackie Gayle who, as Tilley’s closer Sam, has a lot to say about Bonanza. (As an aside, I saw Gayle in the Catskills years ago and yelled out “Do Bonanza” and he obliged with a full 15 minute monologue on the show). 

Punctuated by a rousing score with music by the Fine Young Cannibals (“Good Thing” indeed) and some terrific production design and wardrobe, this movie just feels so perfect. Levinson’s script is a wonder that straddles the fine line of humor and drama and goes to great lengths to show that these Tin Men, they work on commission and all they got is what’s in their pockets. Which is often nothing. And that’s the beauty of Levinson’s script — there is a sense of uncertainty, of mortality and what the road ahead will bring. 

And if none of that matters to you, just look at all the beautiful cars.  

WATCH IT!

P.s. in a small role — her feature film debut — Deirdre O’Connell who should have been nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar in 2026 for her role as Dawn Bodkin in Eddington.

THE RIGHT STUFF  (1983)

*****

It’s not that I disliked the Disney-Plus version of The Right Stuff. It was a decidedly fine effort that focused on the early days of the space program and the definite rivalry that existed between Alan Shepard and John Glenn.

The problem I had with it was that, aside from the first episode, the series was a rather droll affair. It was lots of nuts and bolts about the formation of the space program but aside from the title there was little focus on what made the man (except Shepard, Glenn and Gordon Cooper). Reading Tom Wolfe’s book, the drama was certainly present but so was a wicked sense of humor. This was a story about test pilots, a raggedy bunch of loonies thrust into the national spotlight in search of man’s quest for space, something that no one had done before and quite frankly a venture that no one was really positive that what they were doing was right. The Disneyfied version of Wolfe’s story is rather clinical — don’t read that as bad. It’s just like a doctor explaining how a heart valve replacement works. And the cast was straight out of central casting and while they were good, they weren’t great. 

With this in mind, once I finished the miniseries I felt constrained to re-watch Philip Kaufman’s exhilarating 1983 adaptation, which is even more so the right stuff. Aiming its focus on Chuck Yeager early on, it sets him as the bar that the Mercury 7 must meet. Do they? The film decidedly has a pro-Yeager bias but the astronauts are given their due. Yeager is the best — he’s the guy with the right stuff — but he’ll never be an astronaut because he never went to college. (Yeager himself makes a cameo as Old Fred in a dive pilot bar)

Aside from the very literate and funny script by writer-director Kaufman that admittedly does take some liberties and omits crucial information (for example, painting Gus Grissom as squirming hatch blower when it was known that there was no human error in the blowing of the explosive bolts in the Mercury capsule- plus, Gus doesn’t go to the White House because JFK was dealing with fallout from the Bay of Pigs invasion) this has probably one of the best dream casts a director could hope for.  

Sam Shepard, Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Barbara Hershey, Pamela Reed, Lance Henrikson, Veronica Cartwright Jeff Goldblum, Harry Shearer, not to mention Scott Glenn and Ed Harris lead a cast that a monkey could direct to Oscar nominations. Everyone shines in this movie but especially Shepard, Glenn Harris and Quaid.  

It shows the humor but it also shows the pain that the wives feel as they get fed up and believe that the government is welching on the military wives’ compact. 

There’s a lot of references to Wolfe’s novel. The Demon, pushing the edge of the envelope, auger in, top of the pyramid and other such terms that are used by Wolfe are used prominently in the movie and give it its authenticity. 

There’s a scene early on when Scotty Crossfield is eating a steak dinner having beaten Yeager’s Mach speed record. To the song “Tennessee Waltz,” Yeager is dancing with his wife, Glennis, and Crossfield knows that Yeager, not he, has it all. 

And then there are the Mercury 7 astronauts, not played by central casting types but rather by a ragtag group of actors whose experience as actors was as unproven as their worthiness as an astronauts. And they build in the conflict between the groups, mainly everyone versus John Glenn whose righteous Dudley Do-Right attitude rankles the others.  

But when need be, they come together as a family. When Annie Glenn refuses to speak to the Vice President (a marvelous Donald Moffat), the head of the space program, because of her stutter the head of the program tells Glenn to get his wife on board or he’ll alter the order of flight assignments. The team’s response? “Who’re you gonna get?” This leaves the head of NASA, who knows he’s lost, to shake his head and mutter “test pilots”. 

Kaufman mines further humor by using Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer as sort of an off kilter Greek chorus that embodies the lack of knowledge and direction that was in the early stages of the space program. There’s a tremendous amount of humor during the early astronaut testing at the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico as well, especially the bathroom scene. 

The special effects are (literally) out of this world. One feels that you are in the air with Yeager and the Mercury 7. The rousing score, by Bill Conti, won an Academy Award as did the special sound effects and editing.  

This film was conceived and shot just after the days of the Iran Hostage Crisis and the film has an overly jingoistic attitude but there’s nothing wrong with that. It fit in with the patriotic mid 80s and it holds up today. That patriotism is embodied by Harris’ John Glenn whose goody two shoes plays full American. 

The other side of the coin is Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard who could give you a withering icy stare followed by a his “Smiling Al” full toothed grin. He cautions Glenn against foisting his view of morality on others. 

Fred Ward and Dennis Quaid make a fine pair as salty Gus Grissom and overly confident Gordo Cooper, out of Langley AFB. 

The best acting in the movie is done by Sam Shepard as Yeager and Veronica Cartwright as Gus Grissom’s wife, Betty, who is besides herself when she doesn’t get to go to the White House because of her husband.   

When Grissom is reviled for losing his capsule, it’s Yeager who comes to his defense. “It takes a special kind to volunteer for a suicide mission especially one that’s on TV. Old Gus did alright”. 

Old Philip Kaufman did alright too. This is still one of my favorite films. 

WATCH IT!

Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.

Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.