Wild Horse Nine Is An Unbridled Triumph
Not a single shot or line of dialogue is misplaced in this masterful comedic thriller, about a sundowning CIA agent and his frazzled partner.
Martin McDonagh has built his career on emotionally stunted men running their mouths. The British-born Irish playwright began his movie career in 2008 with In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as hitmen in crisis hiding out in the picturesque Dutch city. Echoes of that concept can be seen in his latest movie, Wild Horse Nine, which follows a pair of CIA agents played by John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell moping around Easter Island in the months before the 1973 Chilean coup. But while McDonagh’s first and fifth feature films are both bloody, dialogue-driven affairs, over the past 20 years the writer-director’s style has mellowed, if not his passion for gobshite.
McDonagh is a writer first, and the screenplay for Wild Horse Nine is just about perfect. Every scene comes loaded with witty exchanges and quirky monologues: Malkovich’s rant about American cheese is a highlight, as are his musings on whether dinosaurs go to Heaven. As the story unfolds, however, every single one of these silly, seemingly random bits pays off, revealing the startling skill behind the casual hangout structure. It’s such a rich text, in fact, that you might not pick up on every callback and subtle connection on the first go-around: There are moments of foreshadowing, but most of them are fleeting, and only come together in retrospect — appropriate for a story that’s full of half-truths, double agents, and sudden flashes of insight.
Great dialogue is nothing without great performers to deliver it, however, and not a single line delivery or facial expression is out of place as longtime partners in espionage Lee (Rockwell) and Chris (Malkovich) set out on a mission with unclear objectives to one of the most remote places on Earth. Rockwell keeps his character’s sadness buried under a frantic, lovingly exasperated exterior, as Lee scrambles to keep Chris from spilling state secrets to random people he meets on the street. Meanwhile, Malkovich’s shuffling stance and halting pauses reveal, in steady and deliberately parceled-out fashion, that Chris’ mind is not as sharp as it used to be. In fact, he’s forgotten that he already told Lee what they’re doing on Easter Island. He’s the one who can’t remember why they’re there.
This becomes more complicated as Wild Horse Nine becomes both more violent and more pensive in its second half, gradually downshifting from raucous absurdity into a more wistful, melancholy kind. This is where the combination of sharp writing and skilled performances benefits the film the most, as McDonagh and his stars demonstrate an impressive ability to instantly shift between the profane and the profound without dulling the impact of either. Peripheral characters, like Steve Buscemi as Chris and Lee’s heroin-enthusiast boss and Parker Posey as Lee’s wild-child wife, are more broadly sketched and purely comedic than the leads. But that’s fine, given that the movie’s emotional core is all about the blood-soaked, yet oddly familial history between these two shady men.
That being said, the two most important supporting roles are Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas as a pair of Chilean college students Chris shows an interest in — “befriends” would imply that the feeling is mutual — as they masquerade as tourists on the island. Amid stunning, sweeping drone shots of mysterious monuments and waving fields of grass, these women appear, again and again, as Lee and Chris tour the famous heads, sternly correcting them and warning them not to make light of the island’s history. Initially framed as scolds, eventually they become the conscience of the piece, a skeptical contrast to Lee and Chris’ all-American impunity.
All of McDonagh’s films are about masculinity in one way or another, and Wild Horse Nine deals not only with the patronizing condescension of older men towards younger women, but of the U.S. towards the so-called “Third World.” The more Chris’ mind deteriorates, the more the violent, domineering arrogance under his charming exterior begins to show: When pressed on what exactly it is he does for a living, his face shifts and his voice suddenly goes cold as he threateningly informs his young companions about exactly what’s going to happen to them and their country just a few short months in the future.
A similar phenomenon is currently playing out in world politics, as America’s status in global politics begins to slip as well. Chris cannot tolerate pushback, even as he knows in his heart that he’s done many terrible things in his life. So what if he’s killed a whole bunch of people? So what if his conspiracies ruin the lives of millions more? He knows what’s best, because he is a white man in power. Or at least he was. Now he’s lost in the twilight of his own memories, small and insignificant underneath the weatherbeaten remnants of another, long-dead empire.
