Wild Horse Nine (TIFF) Review: John Malkovich Is Brilliant in Martin McDonagh’s Darkly Hilarious Latest

PLOT: In 1973, a dying CIA agent (John Malkovich) and his colleague (Sam Rockwell) go to Easter Island on vacation on the eve of the Chilean military coup d’état, an event both had a hand in planning.

REVIEW: In Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh continues to prove that there’s no one better at depicting dysfunctional male friendships than he is. It feels very much like a thematic cousin to both In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin, with all three movies depicting an unlikely friendship between two acid-tongued men, with one being older and the other younger. It’s probably more like In Bruges than Banshees, as, like in that film, one of the men is supposed to kill the other over the course of their vacation.

John Malkovich’s Chris is a legendary CIA agent, having reportedly killed sixty-eight men in almost every major covert operation since the Second World War. But he also knows a hell of a lot, with him threatening to write his memoirs now that he knows he’s dying of inoperable cancer. That scares his boss, Steve Buscemi’s MJ, who is afraid Chris will reveal what he knows about the Kennedy assassination, with it seeming like he more than likely had a hand in it. Rockwell’s Lee is supposed to keep an eye on him, with the visit to Easter Island being Chris’s dying wish—it’s his last hurrah.

Wild Horse Nine takes place on the eve of a dark chapter in American and Chilean history, with the CIA having a hand in the violent coup that would plunge Chile into a military dictatorship, with the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, overthrown and his left-wing supporters targeted. Both Lee and Chris have early knowledge of just how bad things are about to get for Chile, and while Chris has never shown a conscience before, something has gotten stirred up in him as he prepares for death.

While it sounds like a thriller, Wild Horse Nine, like the rest of McDonagh’s work, is often hilarious. The laughter at the packed TIFF premiere screening was so loud that I missed some of Malkovich’s best lines, with the film giving him an acidly funny showcase that should put him in Oscar contention. Rockwell once again proves himself to be one of the screen’s most reactive presences, with him perfectly playing off Malkovich as Lee, who—in addition to Chris—also has to deal with a boozy, unfaithful wife back home (played by Parker Posey). The whole cast is superb, with Steve Buscemi funny as their foul-mouthed, possibly murderous boss, while Tom Waits has a cameo that’s too perfect to spoil. The film is also given some heart by Mariana di Girolamo as a Chilean leftist who shows Chris some unexpected empathy and, along with Lee, becomes pretty much the only person he actually cares about. But it’s the relationship between Chris and Lee that gives the film its heart. Even if you think Chris and Lee might be willing to kill each other if they have to, you also get a sense that they truly do love each other, even if neither would ever admit it.

Like all of McDonagh’s films, the on-location photography adds immensely to the proceedings, with Easter Island being a unique place to shoot. McDonagh’s movies are always worth keeping an eye out for, and this is another winner for one of the most consistent writer-directors currently working. Hopefully, it earns Malkovich the Oscar that’s long been denied him.