Martin McDonagh’s works often focus on the unexpected violence of disillusioned, yet absurdly hilarious characters who feel isolated from their worlds. Whether it’s the friendship gone sour in 1920s Ireland in The Banshees of Inisherin (2012) or the bickering antics of a suicidal hitman and his partner in In Bruges (2008) — his films often have a bitter edge softened by his sharp, comedic skills as a writer when it comes to dialogue and situations. None could be truer than his latest film, Wild Horse Nine, a picturesque, violent comedic romp of two CIA agents set against the backdrop of 1970s Chile, as they sightsee the Easter Island Heads whilst grappling with their violent actions and the scars they leave behind. 

Chris (John Malkovich) is a tenured CIA spy taking a vacation to see the Easter Islands with his young partner, Lee (Sam Rockwell). Despite Chris’s lack of respect for his boss, MJ (Steve Buscemi), and his disrespect for the Chilean government toward students at the airport, the trip is leisurely-paced, with stops to see the many stone head figures. (Although with Chris, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all). Yet, something else is lurking, as Chris emphasizes recording the memoirs of his life (Osburn Cox from Burn After Reading would like a word) and keeps forgetting dates and conversations he’s had with Lee. Meanwhile, MJ is adamant that Lee retrieve every piece of recording or evidence from Chris’s memoirs while they keep a low profile on Easter Island. 

Eventually, as Chris becomes more unhinged with his rants about cheese and gay countries or Lee’s ex-wife having a one-night stand with a former clown, the bickering becomes an avenue for Chris to peel away at the numbed-out dark layers of his shady past and reckon with the weight of his actions. Most days he records aimlessly into his tape recorder, detailing his shady past or talking about the most extraneous, non-pertinent items. As MJ pressures Lee to keep him in check about what he says and details in his memoirs, it becomes clear their vacation to see the giant heads lays the way for something much darker.

In the usual fashion of his prior films, McDonagh pits two hapless men together once again, as their argumentative antics are ripe for the film’s most blistering, hilarious moments. McDonagh simply knows how to get the best performance out of every actor, and his unobtrusive way of letting actors feel out the scene and build their rapport is marvelous to watch. While Chris and Lee are not mentor and mentee, there is a bit of the sage old wise one leading the young agent along, as their relationship becomes more embroiled in conflict and even tragedy as the film goes. 

McDonagh’s preference for blending the cynical dark violence of man with the inexplicable comedy that’s born from man’s stupidity and stubbornness has benefited his career and aided in Wild Horse Nine’s ability to be entertaining, even if the narrative feels more stiff and rote by its confined nature. McDonagh clearly wants to tackle a lot, but not make it so heavy-handed that it belittles the audience. Yet that’s where the film feels particularly malformed or scant, rather than enmeshed in detail. There’s an airiness to the tangents of history and the CIA that makes it feel more expansive than the film is comfortable with — being an intimate character drama.

Wild Horse Nine encapsulates all the McDonagh traits that have made him a celebrated artist — the specificity of his characters and their emotionally complex interiorities and his penchant for mixing the soulful, ambiguous area of mortality with bursts of violence. He takes on even more responsibilities by intertwining the history of America’s direct foreign intervention regime changes (McDonagh labels it his “most political thing.”) and the deleterious effects the CIA has had in instituting more death and destruction. 

Yet, with so much rich history and textured weight, Wild Horse Nine is his most straightforward film, and significantly, his most shambles of the bunch. It often feels less pointed and purposeful and more slight and shuffling, as it never veers into anything unexpected or surprising that makes the narrative feel more alive and invigorating. It maintains a direct throughline, while tangentially bringing in 1970s Chilean history, the J.F.K. assassination, the attitude toward the rise of communism during the Cold War, yet none of it ever coalesces above what is a somber, rote, mournful drama of a hitman nearing the end of his life and reconciling his influences in enacting historical violence. 

Wild Horse Nine stars John Malkovich, who gives one of his best, most outstanding performances of his career. Never the one to turn away from boisterous, manic characters, Malkovich makes Chris an endearing pain to endure and a sad shell of a pained man reckoning with his empty consciousness. His back-and-forth with Rockwell provides some of the film’s most memorable moments, mainly due to how adamant and raw he can be with his outlandish outbursts. Malkovich chews and spews McDonagh’s witty dialogue like bullets, grazing anyone who crosses his foggy mind.

McDonagh captures many scenes where Malkovich is at his most vulnerable and deranged (a lot of questions about dinosaurs or moths getting into heaven), which makes Chris more layered. Despite his successes, there’s a lack of pride it brings him, only a numbed pain of a man who’s witnessed many atrocities and is uncovering the “why” of it all. When he vocalizes to two young ladies that their “country is going to be fucked,” it’s less of him being arrogant and more of a warning for their sake, underneath his offensively mean streak. It’s a brilliant performance by Malkovich, who reminds everyone why we love him: his palpable energy injects every scene with life.

Rockwell’s Lee acts appropriately as a co-lead with Chris, the closest thing he can call his best friend, yet a mentee-in-training who doesn’t have the storied history of Chris (he’s only killed eight people while Chris has killed 68). Lee often protects Chris from himself. Lee’s care for Chris extends to the fact that Chris has tasked him with one very important last job, and despite shouldering the immense weight, Rockwell turns Lee into the empathetic heart of Wild Horse Nine, acting as a medium for Chris’s lack of self-preservation and MJ’s persistence in managing Chris due to being a liability to forgo CIA secrets. 

Steve Buscemi and Parker Posey round out the cast with brief but enjoyable enough roles to fill out the McDonagh roster of eccentric, unfiltered characters. However, it’s Mariana di Girólamo as Monica, a student on vacation whom Chris befriends, who slowly surprises as a noteworthy, subtle performance that becomes the film’s emblem. McDonagh initially relegates her to an offended punchline to Chris’s crass behavior in the first half; as Monica gets more screen time with Chris, she realizes how little the world she believes in (student protests, civil disobedience) can do to enact real change. 

Monica is introduced to a world of violence and assassinations that conflicts with her moral compass. Her arc is the most pronounced, yet it feels mechanical and convenient for the plot, rather than an organic character that changes with the narrative. There’s a superficiality with the way McDonagh wants to talk about the CIA’s history of intervening in foreign governments that feels thinly conceived. But it’s Girólamo’s beautifully unsuspecting performance that outshines the writerly maze in which McDonagh places Girólamo.

The Martin McDonagh experience is like no other: characters (often morally unscrupulous) can have the most absurd, off-the-cuff tangential conversations that feel ripe for a caustic buddy comedy, but then his writing sucker-punches you with melancholic, somber, realist emotions, rendering his characters grounded in the dirt. After five feature films, McDonagh makes it clear what he loves to focus on — whether it’s bickering friends (who sometimes are involved with violent organizations) or excavating the sour, depressing details that life is sad and dark, and innocent people get hurt. Yet, that attitude has never wavered his ability to infuse every film with an emotional depth that feels earned and honest. 

Wild Horse Nine may feel like a lesser narrative in McDonagh’s canon of twisted stories, yet it retains the brilliant chemistry of actors and dialogue that make it just as fitting of an entry. Compared to the morbid stage tales and bloody tragic films, Wild Horse Nine feels more stripped of that inclination toward violence, emphasizing characters living and breathing their environment and reflecting on their emotional purgatory. Never would one think John Malkovich interacting with a horse would prove to be the film’s most emotional focal point, yet only a madman like McDonagh could concoct a scenario as bizarre and earnest as the one in this film. 

Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai

Feature Image Credit to Searchlight Pictures