"Wild Horse Nine" by Martin McDonagh Is Tender and Ruthless at Once With an Award-Worthy John Malkovich
With Wild Horse Nine we find ourselves in Chile in 1973, but very soon we move to the lush greenery of Easter Island. A setting similar yet different from the one in his director and screenwriter Martin McDonagh's previous film, The Banshees of Inisherin, in which the dynamic between the protagonists is reversed compared to that of John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, the lead duo surrounded by colleagues Steve Buscemi and Parker Posey. If in the 2022 film Brendan Gleeson decides he no longer wants to be friends with Colin Farrell, this time the pair of CIA agents share a working and human relationship that runs far deeper than a first glance might suggest.
Friendship returns in McDonagh's work, with Wild Horse Nine making it the central theme as well as the driving force behind emotions that have never felt quite this tender within the Irish filmmaker's body of work. Pathos and empathy have always been part of the registers he employs in his stories, though they are usually veiled by a rage (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) or a melancholic anguish (The Banshees of Inisherin) that the film with Malkovich and Rockwell leaves firmly behind.
McDonagh's pen, however, remains sharp and witty, pulling no punches for anyone, and this allows him to put the protagonists' questionable behaviour into perspective against the backdrop of their profession. Yet in the way he portrays his characters — whose actions do not necessarily reflect what they are going through internally — there is undoubtedly a certain tenderness, like a caress from the author himself.
The same gentle pat that Rockwell exchanges with Malkovich, who is irritating and garrulous while grappling with a torment that weighs on him. A moment of unexpected tenderness between these two men taking a brief respite from their mission to destabilise democracy in Chile, as the veteran takes stock of what his life has amounted to so far, wondering whether dinosaurs have souls and whether any Nazi might end up in heaven. Dialogue continues to be the driving force in McDonagh's work; he creates a circularity in his subjects and small set-ups, returning to them later to deliver payoffs that are both amusing and perfectly timed. All the while keeping as an undercurrent the reckoning that anyone must face when they sense their life is drawing to a close.
John Malkovich is in dazzling form as he inhabits an agent forced to take stock of an entire lifetime. Foul-mouthed and blunt, behind the spark in his eyes lies a desperate desire to be understood. His character is intent on writing a memoir, holding nothing back and speaking freely about the secrets the agency would never want to see come to light. It is a role that showcases the talent of a performer who has not always been given his due in recent years — with the exception of his 2019 television turn as the Pope for Paolo Sorrentino in the second season of The New Pope. And he forms an easy-going duo, for all the violence of their work, with his partner Rockwell, who revels in McDonagh's worlds with evident pleasure.
And it is precisely this unexpected sweetness that makes Wild Horse Nine a fresh yet perfectly integrated piece of Martin McDonagh's filmography. He strikes his audience with a mix of slaps and caresses as he journeys alongside his protagonists to discover the moai of Easter Island and explore what it is we leave behind in life. This is a film for which one would gladly see John Malkovich hold the Volpi Cup aloft at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where the film is receiving its world premiere, or compete in the upcoming Oscar season. Another outstanding film from McDonagh, one of the most gifted screenwriters in contemporary cinema.
