Acid humor and suspense: the best comedy of 2025 (so far) has just arrived on Netflix

A commercial flight is hijacked and the planned route becomes a geopolitical board. Then, “Good News” sees intelligence agencies, the military and politicians vying for narrative control, while passengers and crew become tactical currency. Directed by Byun Sung-hyun, with Sul Kyung-gu, Hong Kyung and Ryoo Seung-bum in the central roles, the film takes as its starting point a historical episode from 1970 to follow the terrestrial choreography of negotiations, phone calls and whispered orders. The Brazilian title appears in the first movement of the plot, when authorities outline an unlikely solution to avoid a diplomatic tragedy.

The plot follows the plane’s arrival in Allied airspace, under constant threat of wrong decisions. The government calls in a ghost operator, known for his coolness and ability to conduct crises without leaving a trace; he acts outside the protocol, studies loopholes and predicts reactions. At the other end, a young officer takes on field work with a sense of responsibility that clashes with the opacity of superior orders. Between the two, an intelligence leader moves pieces according to political convenience, paying attention to the press and the domestic power game.

“Good News” alternates tension and irony by showing meeting rooms, hangars and offices as arenas. Laughter arises from administrative absurdity, not from outright jokes. The staging prefers shots that emphasize corridors, doors that open and close, looks that avoid the camera, as if each gesture could increase or reduce the danger. The sound design uses radios, footsteps and paper handling to indicate conflicting priorities; when silence takes over the scene, it becomes clear that personal costs accumulate outside the sight of those who sign the orders.

South Kyung-gu makes up an operator whose reputation circulates before him. The low voice and economy of movement suggest devotion to efficiency, even when this requires circumventing rules. Hong Kyung plays a military man on the threshold between loyalty and conscience; his gaze reveals the collision between mission and ethics. Ryoo Seung-bum brings sour humor to the institutional figure who knows how to negotiate with superiors, the press and internal rivals. These are interpretations that complement each other without shouting for attention, preserving the focus on the dilemmas and concrete choices made under ticking clocks.

Byun Sung-hyun conducts the material with visual clarity and uses cuts that keep the information flowing without confusing. The photography prefers restrained colors and dry contrasts, highlighting metal, glass and concrete surfaces, almost like an administrative landscape. The camera avoids gratuitous virtuosity and gives space to dialogue, transforming words into short-range weapons. The discreet musical score functions as a dramatic beat; enters to mark impasses and retreats when the rooms are filled with indecision. The set favors the feeling that every minute spent in hesitation could cost lives outside the frame.

The film gains momentum in the passages in which the authorities prepare a logistical theater to conduct negotiations. Without revealing the outcome, the report shows how the solution devised on land depends on visual tricks, controlled versions and promises made for immediate consumption. The satire appears when the self-preservation of careers counts as much as the safety of the anonymous people on the plane. This ambiguity keeps the work in a political register, without losing the link with the practical events that drive the intrigue.

Not everything is resolved with the same clarity. The second act expands the number of characters and sectors involved, and the multiplication of parallel lines sometimes dilutes the emotional axis. Some jokes go on longer than necessary and remove some of the air of urgency that was imposed at the beginning. Still, whenever the script returns to the young officer in the field, the narrative regains intensity and clarity of purpose, as it concentrates the doubts that any organization would prefer to push under the carpet.

There is special interest in the way “Good News” addresses public responsibility. The film questions, without speech, the distance between what official statements promise and what teams are able to deliver under pressure. When decisions are justified by image gains, the real priority reveals itself: preventing failure from appearing. This perspective puts comedy in conflict with suspense, and the friction between the two registers creates a bitter reading of the state routine. In the exhausted faces of the technicians and soldiers, the narrative finds the human dimension of choices.

Spatial construction also reinforces this theme. Cold rooms compress those who need to make decisions, while runways and yards expose the individual’s insignificance in the face of planes, vehicles and squadrons. In closed environments, the camera movement maintains proximity to papers, maps and telephones, insisting on the materiality of the work that supports the public staging of power. There is no grandiloquent heroism: there is calculation, fear of guilt and attempts to prevent public opinion from realizing the size of the risk.

When approaching the outcome, “Good News” preserves tension by remembering that no plan can completely withstand the unexpected. The relationships between the three central characters reach a point where ethical disagreements take shape, but the film refuses comfortable answers. The operator wants to resolve it, the official seeks to understand what is right, the leader tries to guarantee his own political survival. These forces create a scenario in which the possible solution is expensive and leaves brands that do not come out with a press release.

The result remains in memory less because of the case’s technical decisions and more because of the clarity with which it exposes the image logic that shapes governments in moments of crisis. When the “good news” finally seems within reach, the question remains about how each participant will deal with what was done to get there. It’s a question that doesn’t end with the credits and that helps explain why similar real episodes continue to produce stories decades later.