Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine delivers poignant, layered drama framed in gallows humor, set in an unlikely place, at a significant moment in history. In 1973 on the cusp of the Chilean coup, longtime CIA partners Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) travel to Easter Island, a special territory of Chile, best known for its giant Moai statues.
Chris is a security risk in Santiago, as he has been openly speaking about the CIA’s work to destabilize the government of Chilean President Salvador Allende and pave the way for military junta Augusto Pinochet to seize power. He is also writing a detailed memoir that could upend CIA secrecy if it leaks. He is dying of cancer and his mental state is deteriorating, causing him to be forgetful and scattered. He also seems to be right out of f**ks to give about keeping to CIA intel protocol. After his decades of service he’s seen much that’s classified, and he knows answers to major historical mysteries that the CIA would not want shared. Chris is trying to organize his thoughts and rationalize his past, but he feels no remorse for what he’s done, mostly he just wants someone to hear his story.
Their CIA superior, MJ (Steve Buscemi) orders Lee to take the unstable, morphine-addled Chris somewhere he can do no harm. Chris asks to go to Easter Island on his final trip, to see the big heads. When they arrive, he engages with a pair of socialist female students, finding an unlikely rapport with Monica (Mariana di Girolamo). She is a supporter of Allende’s Popular Unity party, and while Chris admires her optimistic energy, he knows Allende will fall. Indeed, he helped plan the coup.
Meanwhile, Lee is charged with trying to rein him in and keep him out of trouble, and check in with MJ. Lee and Chris annoy each other in the way of old friends. Chris takes special delight in antagonizing Lee with his meandering thoughts and bizarre stream-of-consciousness musings. His most absurd declaration is that no memoir goes back far enough, and he intends to start his with the time of the dinosaurs. When he’s not minding Chris, Lee speaks to his unfaithful wife Margie (Parker Posey) by phone.
“… in 1973 on the cusp of the Chilean coup, two CIA agents go to Easter Island …”
The detailed texture of Wild Horse Nine give it a rich, authentic sense of the events of the time and deepens the characters. Both agents are morally bankrupt, and yet still have normal attachments to family, friendship, and sympathy for others. Not enough, mind you, to stop them from killing when ordered to, but they are not sociopaths. Lee genuinely cares for his partner and tries to honor his wishes for a holiday that may be his last. Chris is less impressed with the Moai than he expected to be, but he does find a profound sympathetic bond with the wild horses on the island.
Both Malkovich and Rockwell deliver peak performances, building on years of experience and skill. Malkovich may be looking at a Best Actor nod for this role. His weird, uneven delivery complements Rockwell’s animated frustration to create perfect dark, acerbic humor. Posey’s Margie is a woman hilariously fed up with her husband being gone, and there is a priceless cameo from Tom Waits.
McDonagh has never tried to spoon-feed his narratives to the audience, and having opening images of the Chilean coup for a film set on Easter Island is confusing unless you know South American history. He brings us up to speed quickly, kicking off the misadventures of the CIA agents as they spend their time recounting glory days together and swapping war stories. Exposition is backfilled, beginning with the coup, Easter Island, the bond between the agents, and then delving deeper into Chris’s illness and faltering cognition.
His other films have also had sophisticated, challenging themes that juxtapose political history with personal stories like The Banshees of Inishiren and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. McDonagh makes our uneasiness part of the dark, humorous excursion. Arriving at the delicately balanced confluence of humor, violence, politics, history, geography, and the tense friendship between killers is tricky. McDonagh pulls it off in his signature style, making an ideal milieu for the artistry of three talented actors at the top of their game.
"…a delicately balanced confluence of dark humor, violence, politics, and history"
