Directed By Martin McDonagh

Starring – John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi

The Plot – Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris (Malkovich) and Lee (Rockwell) are dispatched from Santiago to Easter island by their bureau chief, MJ (Buscemi). Amongst the Island’s iconic statues, and as the longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies, Chris’s newfound bond with a pair of rebellious students (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) threatens to send everyone’s trip to this remote paradise sideways.

Rated R for pervasive language, some strong violence, drug use and sexual references.

WILD HORSE NINE | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures

POSITIVES

Like the finest of wines aged to impeccable perfection, Martin McDonagh is one of those rare filmmakers whose ambition and artistry have grown remarkably with each passing installment to his decorated filmography, without a single glaring inferiority among the assembled collection, and with ‘Wild Horse Nine’ containing all of the familiar touchstones of the filmmaker, as well as his dependable sourcing of tonal elasticity, the film is a snappily sharp, ferociously funny, and profoundly poignant experience that sneaks up on the audience in the most emotionally stirring of ways, surmising what is sure to be another Oscar’s darling worthy of cementing a few more inevitable nominations under the Irishman’s umbrella. McDonagh’s grip on the integrity of the picture can be seen in nearly every facet of the movie’s singularized approach, between the masterful grip over the integrity of the tone, which shifts naturally between laugh-out-loud absurdity in the randomness of conversations elicited between Chris and Lee to profoundly melancholic tragedy pertaining to guilt and karma, but also his breathtaking capturing of the articulated seclusion of Easter Island’s many majestic landscapes, helping to bring the production to life in the depths of a valuable period piece that feels fully realized and lived-in with the choices paid to wardrobe and the lack of technology offering a refreshing definition that sticks seamlessly within the integral imagery, without the need for the dialogue or on-screen text to point it out every fifteen minutes or so. While this is undoubtedly one of McDonagh’s most comedically consistent films that he’s ever manifested, with the bickering chemistry between Chris and Lee feeling like a married couple who have spent a bit too much time together, the film provides its most intricately lasting value during thought-provoking revelations that are unearthed during some of the film’s most dramatically-dependent moments, where dissected complexities pertaining to guilt and moral reckoning, isolation and mortality, and even American Imperialism and historical complicity, gift the audience plenty of introspective substance to chew on while effectively attempting to assemble morality to these conflicted characters. While the journey initially begins as a relaxing vacation for our protagonist duo to get away from the everyday stresses of an extraordinary career, the purgatorial landscape of their extensively isolated getaway provides the unavoidable inevitability of confronting decades of dark secrets, covert interventions, and personal regrets in the odd-couple dynamic between longtime partners, where unforeseen elements of loyalty and caretaking codependency become frazzled within an industry driven by paranoia and ulterior motives, and while the script also written by McDonagh isn’t necessarily as concerned with the twists and turns to the lack of transparency between these colleagues-turned-friends, it does add a lot of atmospheric skepticism to the interpretability of Chris’ vulnerably withering mentality, allowing us to not only question the frailty of his perceived condition, but also the elaborateness of the conspiracy against him, which makes every secondary islander a prime suspect in the advanced actions of a bureau to make sure that Chris takes his secrets to the grave. As for that script, the profane, wisecracking dialogue from McDonagh earnestly helps to invigorate the movie’s friendship dynamic with a weaving rhythm during jabbing that appraises unpredictability among a variety of irreverent topics, with so much about the devil of the candid details in deliveries articulating the kind of underlining honesty that continuously hits harder with deeper and more significant meanings attached, without the forcefulness to draw them out intentionally to a scene’s directional integrity. Some of these shocking disclosures certainly provide a key for the material to unlock some of its grimly darker subject matter, pertaining to real-world tragedy and CIA misdeeds, reminding us that great change does indeed come from horrible actions of the past, while other times providing an internalized introspection during isolation that presents some of the most honest depictions of spontaneous depression ever put to film, and considering McDonagh ingrains so much authenticity to the back-and-forth psychology of what’s eventually transpiring, it breathes life into many of the dilemmas persisting casually between them, that feel existentially spawned long before they film’s contextual creativity ever existed, in turn appraising a highly believable form of prickly chemistry between John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, which appraises this charming irresistibility to the film’s overarching appeal. Malkovich feels primed for a gold statue nomination of his own, as he not only seamlessly shifts from a cynical, volatile, and lashing loose-cannon, to a quietly understated figure forced to process his own mortality, but also commands the material with his historically celebrated distinct cadences and low murmuring, that lace McDonagh’s causticness with menacing and comedic effect, materializing what is undoubtedly some of Malkovich’s best work in decades, if not ever. Not to be outshined by Malkovich’s mystique, Rockwell’s straight man sizzles with a masterclass of measured emotionality and baffled facial expressions that provide an instinctual influence to Malkovich’s unhinged absurdity, without sacrificing the leading man charm that Sam has dependably cultivated in stitching swagger to these characters, allowing him endless opportunities to maintain the integrity of the engagement throughout a nearly two hour runtime, even when the film occasionally deviates away from Malkovich’s dominant grip. Lastly, the marriage between imagery and instrumentals becomes hauntingly melancholic as a result of the romantic and elegiac themes that resonate within longtime McDonagh collaborator, Carter Burwell’s, somberly stirring score, appraising sentimentality to the spectrum that never feels saccharine to the dimensionality of facial registries that the camera is sturdily studying. What’s truly special about Carter’s instrumentals isn’t just the versatility of his compositions, that effectively evade repetition throughout the engagement, but rather the crystallizing of the tonal tenacity supporting the hefty underlining of the material’s aforementioned mortality and friendship, beyond the weaponizing banter between its characters, drawing out much of the stinging sadness of the characters’ conflicts as they find themselves tasked with confronting inevitability.

NEGATIVES

While the script represents an undeniably ambitious exploration of human vulnerability for McDonagh, there’s this undeniable feeling of the material feeling stretched thinly, as a result of specific arcs feeling underdeveloped or sidelined into passively supporting roles, particularly arcs involving the seemingly unresolved peril of Lee’s wife (Played by Parker Posey), or even the localized Chilean perspectives taking a crucial backseat to the ways they were framed extensively during the movie’s marketing trailers. Considering the movie is right around the two hour mark, and yet attempts to cram so much into the surrounding relevancy of the characters, it’s inevitable that some arcs will be undervalued compared to others, however utilizing the 1973 Chilean coup and Augusto Pinochet’s regime as a distant backdrop for a cynical buddy comedy feels forcefully heavy-handed, if not downright distasteful, leaving the script attempting plenty of accessible angles, without the patience or conviction to flesh them out equally enough to feel like a backbone of the movie’s framed focus. Aside from this, my only other problem with the film pertained to the material unintentionally surmising this unavoidable feeling of recycled formulas from previous McDonagh films, specifically ‘In Bruges’, to which ‘Wild Horse Nine’ shares a remarkable amount of structural similarities. Everything from the two-hander dynamic involving bickering assassins, to the boss’ ulterior motives, to both films’ ideas of displaced tourism and purgatory, feels clumsily lifted from its predecessor, with very little effort to deviate extensively enough to keep hardcore McDonagh fans from sniffing them out, and though I found this movie to be far superior to ‘In Bruges’, in basically every incremental measurement of its execution, there’s some unalleviated regret to the realities of McDonagh reheating outdated leftovers, keeping me from enjoying the uniqueness of this film’s incremental originalities, or the expansiveness of McDonagh’s own experienced knowledge.

OVERALL
‘Wild Horse Nine’ saddles up another exceptionally acted and sardonically hilarious masterclass dramedy from Martin McDonagh, whose sharply introspective writing and dazzling direction cultivates an unexpectedly moving experience that sneaks up on unsuspecting audiences in the best ways imaginable. Blessed by the electrically elevating chemistry of John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, as well as a biting buffet of thematic impulses along this journey of enlightenment, the film is a lyrically melancholic awards contender that delights as much as it devastates, even while treading some familiar territory that takes away the allure of its originality.

My Grade: 8.6 or A-