Wild Horse Nine is in theaters on Nov. 6.
Two killers head out on a not quite break-from-work trip to a picturesque location, where shenanigans ensue. I’ve seen that movie and it’s called In Bruges, you might be saying. But In Bruges writer-director Martin McDonagh is far from playing the same Funny Games as Michael Haneke by making the same film twice, so while his new film Wild Horse Nine might put him in familiar territory, this is not just another In Bruges — and we are all the better for it.
The Catholic guilt remains, but McDonagh trades the tortured hitmen of In Bruges for two CIA spooks who need a reprieve from setting up Augusto Pinochet’s coup in early ’70s Chile. So off they go for a quick breather from working to overthrow a democratically elected Marxist (the CIA can’t have that, no. Definitely not in their own hemisphere!) to see the big heads on Easter Island.
What makes this film great is its ability to tackle heady subjects like political violence and CIA-backed regime change and yet still be funny as hell and a great hangout movie. It’s a tough needle to thread, but Martin McDonagh does it without being insensitive to the real-world changes that are happening around his characters.
Petty. Brilliant. Bickering.
McDonagh is an excellent filmmaker, but he’s undoubtedly best at screenwriting. His dialogue is incredible. It can be absurd, funny, charming, mean, and insightful; most of the time, it can be all of those at once. I’ve been using some form of “You’re a nice guy, Pádraic” as my preferred euphemism for calling people an idiot ever since I saw The Banshees of Inisherin. It’s such a nice, pleasant veneer, but it’s so cutting. And when I use it, most people don’t realize I’m insulting them, just like Pádraic.
Wild Horse Nine is also chock-full of great zingers. Take the scene in the trailer, where Lee (Sam Rockwell) is trying to shush Chris (John Malkovich), who won’t stop talking about all his political assassinations.
Chris snaps back, “I’ve killed people in countries you can’t even spell,” and then mentions that he killed a guy in Czechoslovakia.
“You never killed anyone in Czechosl-fucking-vakia. You just know I can’t spell it,” responds Lee.
Those micro-tugs-of-war for power, jockeying for a kind of dominance that’s ultimately inconsequential, are a hallmark of McDonagh’s writing and what make his dialogue so memorable. It’s part lyrical, part petty, and even takes on elements of stand-up comedy like the callback.
For example, some of the film’s best jokes are set up early with pithy lines, only to be paid off later. And in a true test of a film’s quality, McDonagh didn’t burn off the best moments of dialogue in the trailer.
Of course, McDonagh’s dialogue is only half the equation. A script is only as good as the hands of the performers it’s in, and McDonagh has assembled a great cast.
American Idiots
Sam Rockwell is back, collaborating with the director who helped him win his Oscar for 2018’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This time he’s playing Lee, a spy whose loyalty is torn between his partner and his agency.
John Malkovich co-stars as Lee’s partner and the more seasoned spy, Chris. The CIA was doing tons of meddling in the ’60s and ’70s, and Chris was boots on the ground for a lot of it. All that experience combined with his wildcard nature is what’s pushing Steve Buscemi’s MJ (the head of the CIA’s South American operations) to believe he’s a real liability and insist, “He ain’t leaving the fuckin’ island.” (Can you blame the guy? He’s talking about killing people… on an airplane.)
Lee and Chris’s relationship is a cockeyed mix of Obi-Wan and Anakin and part Riggs and Murtaugh. Malkovich’s Chris is both the old, grizzled Murtaugh and the maverick Riggs combined into one CIA spy. Meanwhile, Lee is the well-meaning Padawan who is on the verge of having to make some hard decisions.
Whether Chris is pontificating on why “gay countries make the best cheese” or clowning on Lee for all his wife’s infidelities, Malkovich has most of the film’s best lines. (Speaking of which, Parker Posey is absolutely hilarious as Lee’s wife Margie.) Listening to these two bicker is the absolute best part of the film. That’s all thanks to Malkovich and Rockwell’s chemistry, which makes these scenes feel like the effortless banter of old colleagues.
Quips aside, Malkovich deftly handles a complex, multifaceted character with empathy and charm. Without getting into too much detail, Chris knows he isn’t long for this world, and, like the flawed Catholic he is, he’s seeking a bit of redemption on his way out. He’s said some bad things, done some worse things; his ability to piss off literally every character in the film is unrivaled. But Malkovich’s charisma keeps us invested in him, and by the end, we’re rooting for him.
The film’s redemptive tension is best exemplified by Chris’s relationship with Monica, one of the young progressive women he insults at the airport. Played by Chilean actress Mariana di Girolamo, Monica is essentially the heart of the film. Despite being completely repulsed by Chris’s antics, they keep running into each other on the island, and eventually it’s Monica who really forces Chris to confront his past and draw out what’s left of his humanity.
Sympathy for the Devils
I can’t help but compare this film to In Bruges. In many superficial ways, they’re extremely similar, but the comparison also helps emphasize how much Martin McDonagh has improved as a storyteller. It’s not like he was bad before; In Bruges, with its funny but generic hitmen on the lam, was one of the better aughts crime flicks that were trying to duplicate Pulp Fiction’s success over a decade later.
Wild Horse Nine and In Bruges share themes of guilt, redemption, moral codes, and loyalty. But where In Bruges confines its moral reckoning to the personal, grounding Wild Horse Nine in historical events adds an extra layer of thematic depth. Using the lead-up to Pinochet’s coup as the backdrop for Lee and Chris’s misadventures on Easter Island forces the characters to confront the moral culpability of their actions, while also challenging American audiences to reckon with the enduring consequences of their country’s political meddling.
To put a finer point on it, it’s extremely tough for a film to have me laughing at two CIA agents debate who would be a bigger security risk to the agency, a boozer wife or a heroin wife, and also get me to wiki Patrice Lumumba immediately after walking out of the theater. But that’s what makes Wild Horse Nine stand out: it makes the absurdity of these men entertaining without letting you forget the very real consequences of their work.
Cinematography That Evokes a ’70s Aesthetic
If you’re like me, you go see a Martin McDonagh film for the script and the performances. But make no mistake, Wild Horse Nine is a beautifully photographed film, even if there’s nothing outstanding about its cinematography. McDonagh and cinematographer Ben Davis really lean into the time period’s ’70s aesthetic. Some of the film’s shots were made to look like they were came from Lee’s Super 8 camera, and even have the edges of the stock in frame. The film’s establishing shots, especially those featuring the island’s iconic moai (the big heads), are rendered beautifully in a grainy, hypersaturated film stock.
Visually, the film makes the most out of its locations in the same way an Italian chef makes the most out of their ingredients. Bear with me here a second. Originally, I wanted to say the film’s cinematography was too workmanlike, but that’s too harsh. To better understand the film’s photographic choices, we need to examine the differences between the philosophies of French and Italian cooking.
For those unaware, French cooking takes a more maximalist approach, emphasizing the chef’s skill and the complex methods they use to prepare an ingredient, while Italian cooking emphasizes minimalism, drawing focus to the quality of an ingredient by preparing it using the simplest methods.
While McDonagh and Davis take the Italian chef approach to their framing, getting out of the way of some truly magnificent vistas, they still have some tricks up their sleeves, progressively increasing their use of close-ups as the film gets more and more intimate with the characters. Despite these almost subliminal techniques, the camerawork never really adds a level of flair that would make it stand out.
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