CIA agents Chris and Lee face a trust-testing mission from Santiago to Easter Island during 1973 in Chile.
Martin McDonagh has established himself as one of my favourite filmmakers, and his latest, ‘Wild Horse Nine’, is another terrific film. Set in 1973, it follows two CIA agents, played by John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, who are dispatched to Easter Island (or Rapa Nui) on a mysterious assignment against the backdrop of political turmoil in Chile, shortly before the military coup that would bring Augusto Pinochet to power. There are obvious similarities with ‘In Bruges’, with two men sent to a beautiful location to carry out a rather unpleasant mission, while the remote island setting and complicated relationship between the central characters also recall ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’. Yet for all those familiar elements, this is a film with plenty of new things to say.
McDonagh’s particular brand of dark humour works brilliantly with this material, and I love the way he writes dialogue, with witty exchanges and wonderfully cutting lines that you simply couldn’t imagine coming from anyone else. What makes ‘Wild Horse Nine’ particularly interesting, however, is the sense of melancholy running through it, with both men reflecting on their lives and the bad things they’ve done in the past. McDonagh is a superb writer and director and he has a specific skill to make you empathise with some truly terrible people, while also making you laugh out loud consistently, often with very dark material. He strikes that balance perfectly here, but never loses sight of the seriousness of the situation and themes the film is exploring.
On that note, it is comfortably McDonagh’s most overtly political film, with the decision to set the story in Chile in 1973 clearly no coincidence. The looming military coup and the involvement of American intelligence provide an unsettling backdrop to what could otherwise have been a fairly straightforward story about two men confronting their pasts. There’s plenty to unpack about the extent to which these men are responsible for their own actions, and how they justify the terrible things they’ve done in the name of their country, and McDonagh explores these questions without allowing the politics to overwhelm the characters. Malkovich has understandably attracted plenty of plaudits for his performance, bringing a world weary cynicism to a man who has spent much of his life doing terrible things, but Rockwell is a perfect foil and every bit his equal, matching him line for line and bringing a different energy to their exchanges. They’re both superb, and it’s the interplay between them that makes so much of the film work.
I thought ‘Wild Horse Nine’ was another excellent film from McDonagh, combining the sharp dialogue and dark humour I’ve come to expect from him with a more reflective story about regret, responsibility and the consequences of people’s actions. It’s more politically engaged than his previous work, but never at the expense of the characters or the comedy, and I really enjoyed the way he brings all of those elements together.
Rating: 4/5
Directed By: Martin McDonagh
Starring: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Mariana di Girolamo, Ailín Salas, Tom Waits and Parker Posey.
