After several Oscar nominations and BAFTA wins for his first four films, it is nice to report that writer-director Martin McDonagh is, with his latest Wild Horse Nine, five for five. And though it is hard to rank a group that includes In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin, there is something about this one that keeps hanging on in my head and I can’t get it out. It is easily one of the year’s best films, and in its own peculiar way the most spiritual. It premiered in competition Thursday at the Venice Film Festival and next heads to Telluride.
With a career performance, and a very different role than he has ever played, John Malkovich is magnificent, wryly funny, a bit scarily intimidating, and moving in a way that can’t easily be quantified. He plays veteran CIA operative Chris, who for a long long time has been living in the darkest shadows, responsible for heinous acts — or not — and now heading for his final days with his a bit younger colleague Lee (Sam Rockwell), who clearly cares for, looks out for and nurtures his friendship above all else with Chris.
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This is a so-called “buddy movie” of a wildly different stripe. This pair has, professionally, been through a lot, shared a ton of unspeakable experiences and grown close over time, with Chris now trusting Lee as a true friend, the only one he says he has ever had. Lee even seems like a caretaker in some ways.
Set in 1973 in Santiago, Chile, just months before the military overthrow that would banish the democratically elected President Salvador Allende, the pair are sent from there to remote Easter Island (known locally as Rapa Nui), ostensibly off duty but both carrying one more secret from each other that eventually merge together. As Chris finds spiritual connections to the centuries-old Maoi statues scattered throughout the volcanic island, essentially writing his memoirs into a dictaphone or Lee’s Super 8 camera, Lee is tasked with an impossible mission from their boss MJ (a terrific Steve Buscemi, as usual), who is aiming to get a rather shocking confession before Lee’s assignment is completed.
All of this is complicated by the pair’s oddball encounters with a couple of Chilean tourists, Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailin Salas), who are at first a bit perplexed, even stunned at Chris’ blunt and indiscreet predictions about what their country and its leader are about to face; over time and more encounters, Monica, in particular, becomes a key ally for Chris, eccentricities and all. At times this whole setup feels like it could be a couple of old friends on holiday, but McDonagh is such a talented writer of the human condition, his pointed screenplay finds a way to merge everything including the impending Chilean political upheaval into an intriguing story of life, death and friendship in one of the world’s most picturesque if mysterious places, a location that is rare in movies and an inspired choice.
Chris is at a point where he is ready to end his own life and wants Lee to do it at the appointed time. “Let’s pick a word you would rarely hear me say, like… Arkansas. That will be the code,” he says. But it is all very complicated and, as we will learn along the way, Chris might just be holding one of the world’s biggest secrets and a key to a conspiracy theory that has been going for 10 years in the film’s time frame but still exists today. It’s a riddle McDonagh peppers slyly throughout and is something MJ wants on tape before Chris leaves this planet.
In ways Wild Horse Nine reminds me of a western: two veteran cowboys who have seen it all are now facing different truths at a key intersection of their lives. Comparisons to John Ford’s The Searchers are in fact inevitable when Tom Waits turns up in a single scene set in Monument Valley, his introduction coming from within a dark cabin as he looks out at the striking landscape, his back to the camera. This is one of the most imitated shots ever in movies, and McDonagh has just added one more homage in a scene that stands alone as a short phone call reunion between two brothers. Waits memorably makes the most of it, as does Parker Posey in her amusing phone conversations with her husband Lee, basically giving reasons for her serial affairs. Her entire role is at their New Mexico residence on the phone, as is Waits’; though both detours could be disposable in the larger scheme of things, instead they are crucial in giving us what precious little information we have about the lives of the men on the other side of those calls.
Ultimately this is a film about two guys, two friends who have spent their lives in the service of some, to be kind, questionable pursuits in the world of foreign policy, a job that has asked them to do things that can be horrifying in a profession that lives on the edge of darkness too much of the time. It takes a toll, but Chris and Lee are the same kind of lone gunslinger who have seen and done bad things, but with each other find a rare emotional connection and friendship that ties them together. Malkovich is the perfect if unexpected casting here and it is one of those performances that after you see it is hard to imagine another actor doing as well. Rockwell may not have quite the quotable off-the-wall dialogue McDonagh has gifted Malkovich but nevertheless anchors the relationship in such ways that really makes this story work as well as it does. Both are simply superb. Special shout-out to the great Chilean star di Girolamo who gives sharp authenticity to Monica, underplaying it just enough to make her eventual fate believable.
Cinematographer Ben Davis, on his fourth time around with McDonagh, has delivered in every way, particularly with the long shots of roaming horses, a specific component of the story for which Chris shares a cosmic connection. Frequent collaborator Carter Burwell’s score perfectly complements the changing moods and tones in haunting melodies.
Producers are Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, McDonagh and Anita Overland.
Title: Wild Horse Nine
Festival: Venice (Competition)
Distributor:
Release date: November 6, 2026
Director-screenwriter: Martin McDonagh
Cast: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Mariana di Girolamo, Ailín Salas, Tom Waits, Parker Posey
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 58 mins
