Ever since his 2008 debut In Bruges, Martin McDonagh has shown a talent for depicting weirdly dysfunctional male relationships. In that film, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are an odd couple of London hitmen hiding out in Belgium. In 2022’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Farrell and Gleeson reunited as a couple of lifelong friends on an isolated Irish island who have a falling out for reasons neither one of them really understand.
The latest in the long line of McDonagh’s dysfunctional guy friends is one of his most fruitful. Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich go on a road trip to Easter Island, but only one of them is going to come back.
As one of his colleagues says, Chris Carlisle’s (Malkovich) personal history is the history of the CIA. “I’ve killed people in countries you can’t even spell,” he says to his partner Lee Chesterfield (Rockwell), who is forced to admit that he can’t spell Czechoslovakia.
For a crack CIA agent entrusted with the state’s darkest secrets, Chris can’t seem to keep his mouth shut. When we meet him, it’s 1973, and he is in an airport blabbing about his mission to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chile to Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailín Salas), a couple of cute young leftist chicks who are none too happy to hear that their socialist President Salvador Allende is about to be forcibly deposed. Lee tries to laugh it off as a joke, but when the girls are gone, he chides Chris to be more professional. But the aging operator is dying of lung cancer, addicted to morphine, and just plain out of fucks to give.
The partners have had a busy few months planning the upcoming coup with their boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) and tagging leftists for assassination, so they’re taking a break on scenic Easter Island. Chris wants to see the big heads before he dies. Before they leave the mainland, he makes a heavy request of Lee. Facing a long and painful death, Chris asks Lee to kill him on the island once he’s finished dictating his memoir. Despite all of the deceit and murder his profession demands of him, he’s a practicing Catholic, so killing himself would be a mortal sin. It’s only fitting that a professional do it, and besides, doesn’t he kind of deserve to be murdered after killing so many people?
MJ is keenly interested in getting his hands on those memoir tapes, plus a certain brown suitcase, to secure the secrets within. Lee must decide whether or not to honor his old friend’s final wish. Plus, what to do with the mysterious agents who seem to have followed them to Rapa Nui.
McDonagh’s screenplay is unapologetically talky. The wit is the point. But he’s not just making silly wordplay. The humor and pathos are all derived from the two well-drawn characters at the center. Rockwell is the CIA agent as college ROTC bro gone pro. The CIA’s reckless culture has slowly eroded his discipline, but he is still focused on the mission. Malkovich’s performance is among the best of his storied career. He veers between impish humor, jingoistic pride, and a deep resignation that the evil he has done outweighed any alleged benefit for “the greater good.”
Wild Horse Nine has some gorgeous cinematography of Easter Island. But if you’re looking for a political thriller as spectacle, look elsewhere. What it does have is a wicked sense of humor, a deep sense of history, and a cast full of actors who can deliver the goods.
Wild Horse Nine is now playing at Malco Collierville, Cordova, Paradiso, and Ridgeway.
