Wild Horse Nine
Director – Martin McDonagh – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 118m
*****
Two Santiago-based CIA operatives travel to to Easter Island prior to the 1973 coup in Chile; one of them is dying – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, November 4th
In 1973, Shortly before the CIA’s destabilisation of Chile, two of its operatives travel from Santiago to Easter Island. The terminally ill Chris (John Malkovich) wants to see the Big Heads (the island’s famous indigenous statues) before he dies, and his colleague Lee (Sam Rockwell) – possibly his only friend – has agreed to accompany him.
Their Santiago-based boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) is concerned; Chris has a habit of shooting his mouth off and saying things he shouldn’t, as evidenced in the airport when Chris starts to chat with two attractive female Chilean students Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailín Salas) and he states, after bringing up the subject of “destabilising your country”, that “we ARE the CIA, actually,” leading to furious denials of the fact by Lee. Both girls are horrified.
Chris has an agenda beyond seeing the Big Heads – as he later confides to Lee, when you’ve seen one Big Head, you’ve seen them all. He wants to die, and rather than wait for nature to run its course, he wants Lee to shoot him in the head at the utterance of a designated safe word. He would rather Lee shoot him at Chris’ request than because MJ wants him dead, and, anyway, he wants to write his memoirs, for which purpose he carries a dictaphone around with him.
MJ doesn’t like the sound of the memoirs; as we spend time with Chris and learn his personal history of involvement in various CIA coups around the world, most notably the assassination of JFK in Dallas, 1963, it’s not hard to understand why. The job requires that you do what needs to be done, then keep your mouth shut afterwards. Chris, knowing he hasn’t got long to live, has ceased to care. Indeed, he intends his visit to Easter Island as a one way trip; he has no intention of coming back. Although he’d like his departure to be on his own terms.
And like Chris, those terms are surprisingly offbeat. For instance, as Lee reports to MJ, Chris starts off his memoirs with lengthy mediations of the dinosaurs and the meaning of existence.
This is not exactly a thriller, not exactly a drama, and not exactly a comedy, although it has elements of all three. There are moments where you are completely hooked by the relationships of the characters, particularly the two foul-mouthed men, there are other moments where the plot takes some decidedly unexpected twists and turns.
As well as the two men, along with, intermittently, the two girls, and the men’s boss who flies out to the Island for the finale (although we see plenty of him on the phone to Lee prior to that), two other minor characters are to be found on the plot’s fringes. Lee’s promiscuous ex-wife Margie (Parker Posey) finds herself under observation and worse by the CIA; before he dies, Chris wants to phone his estranged brother (Tom Waits), who lives in a homestead looking out onto Monument Valley.
What this is, fundamentally, is a three-way character study about the close relationship of the two CIA operatives and, to a lesser extent, their relationship with their boss. Malkovich has never been better as the dying hitman who exudes charm and mediates on the meaning of existence. Rockwell proves the perfect foil to him, two men who have been through thick and thin together. In a way, each would trust the other with their life, yet, in contradiction, neither really trusts the other at all. Throw into the mix their showily-suited boss, who Chris hints may be a secret heroin addict, and you have an explosive recipe for confrontation.
And, given Chris’ past history and his unusual thoughts on anything and everything, with Lee trying to stay on top of the fast developing situation, the proceedings prove hilarious.
After the pair have been there a while, Chris starts to tire of Easter Island and its Big Heads, suggesting the pair go on one last trip to Venice, Italy. The finale delivers a fair few surprises.
Given its subject matter, this is a film that you feel, as you watch it, that you shouldn’t really be enjoying. Morally murky and dubious it may be, yet the whole thing and its cast of characters, particularly the three at its centre, turns out to be completely compelling. And, in places, very, very funny.
Wild Horse Nine is out in cinemas in the UK on Wednesday, November 4th.
Teaser trailer:
Trailer: