written by: Martin McDonagh
produced by: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh & Anita Overland
directed by: Martin McDonagh
rated: R (for pervasive language, some strong violence, drug use and sexual references)
runtime: 117 min.
U.S. release date: November 6, 2026

Martin McDonagh has become known for his dark dramedies, such as “In Bruges”, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, and “The Banshees of Inisherin”, yet the Irish playwright and Oscar-winning writer/director hasn’t made very many films over the years. So it’s kind of a big deal when a new Martin McDonagh film comes out, with the expectation of quirky tales that usually revolve around a pair of restless, antsy men at some kind of crossroads in their life or career. “Wild Horse Nine” has that, but it’s also a period piece, which is something a little different for McDonagh, at least regarding his film work. It’s a dark, comedic political thriller set in the 70s, following a pair of CIA officers through major life changes that test their partnership amid professional demands and personal issues. The Easter Island setting gives the film a rich visual palette, as an absorbing plot unfolds, told by a cast that delivers excellent performances.

It’s 1973, and CIA officers Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich) and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell) are stationed in Chile, participating in the planning of political upheaval that’s about to destroy the population. They’ve been partners for a while now, with Lee stuck in a caretaker role, trying to keep an eye on Chris, who’s a morphine addict and struggling with memory issues, with a brain that’s full of sensitive information. The pair take a vacation to Easter Island, with Chris wanting to see the “big heads,” and ornery bureau chief MJ (Steve Buscemi) is relieved by their distance, tasking Lee with monitoring the ill man. Arriving on the island, the pair see the sights, discussing the present and the past as they figure out their next move. During their trip, they meet a pair of Chilean students, Monica (Mariana de Girólamo) and Alicia (Ailin Salas), and Chris ends up oversharing and offending them at the same time. As he wrestles with his thoughts, Chris attempts to piece together the start of his memoir, forever trying to process his relationship with Lee, who’s burdened with the knowledge that his partner has asked that he kill him, yet Chris is unable to recall such a request.

“Wild Horse Nine” wastes no time introducing us to the two main characters. It’s immediately obvious that Chris and Lee have been through a lot over the years, perhaps more so Chris, just because he’s a couple of decades older. The two genuinely act like brothers, engaging in constant, often combative banter, laced with profanity. This trip to Easter Island – or Rapa Nui, as the Chilean students correct them with the location’s indigenous name – is designed to be a break for a week, after they’ve successfully put into motion a political destabilization in Chile. Chris and Lee take in the sights, primarily all the “heads”, as Lee captures it all with his Super 8 and the wandering Chris pontificates and theorizes freely and without a filter.

McDonagh has an uncanny, seamless way of inserting these two into real-world events, almost like a revisionist historical dramedy. Indeed, the 1973 Chilean coup d’état was a military overthrow of Chile’s socialist president, Salvador Allende, and his Popular Unity coalition government. It’s hinted that the agents, primarily Chris, have been involved in a handful of other coup d’etats, as well as a long line of assassinations of political leaders, including some “Kennedy thing” that went down in 1963.

They aren’t completely isolated from the outside world while at Easter Island. Well, Chris is, but Lee gets phone calls from MJ and his wife, Marge (Parker Posey), and none of these calls offer encouragement or respite. MJ remains anxious and paranoid that Chris is divulging secret information through his no-filter conversations or outbursts, and is constantly wanting Lee to do something about it. He’s caught between his loyalty to Chris and duty to his job, the latter of which he isn’t really all that serious about anymore. His calls from Marge aren’t much better, as it’s obvious they have an abrasive relationship, yet it’s one with history. She’s at their home in the States with their twin 17-year-old boys (mentioned but never seen, probably because they want nothing to do with their parents), and each time we see her, she’s smoking, drinking, and upset about something. Are her hysterics about believing she’s being surveilled valid, or is it just a way to have Lee feel guilty? At the same time, she understands Lee’s long-standing friendship with Chris and asks her husband how Chris is doing, knowing full well his illness and what he’s asked her husband to do. While her role is one of those Geographically Distant Wife on the Phone roles, a trope often seen in movies (Laura Linney’s role as Tom Hanks’s wife in “Sully” comes to mind), at least Posey has some really good material from McDonagh to chew on.

McDonagh largely leans into his proclivity for bromance in “Wild Horse Nine”, which was the highlight of two of his previous movies, “In Bruges” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”, and since he excels at offering such rich, engaging material for two male leads, no one is complaining. The friendship between Chris and Lee is certainly the highlight of the feature, thanks to casting director Sarah Finn (who’s cast most of the MCU) for landing Malkovich and Rockwell. The two actors have typically been great in just about everything they’ve been in – if not, they’ve been the best part of subpar projects. So, it’s a real treat to see them working together and produce such wonderful prickly chemistry.

Watching them, and Buscemi and Posey here (and, for that matter, Tom Waits, who has a brief scene filmed in Monument Valley as Chris’s estranged brother), made me think about how we tend to take for granted the great actors we have around. This is especially true considering how many seem to be leaving this mortal coil. They show up and do solid work, because we know they have in the past, and we expect them to again. While watching “Wild Horse Nine”, I was overcome with feelings of gratitude that such a film exists with these actors.

Malkovich takes the lead with a meatier role, and while his interaction with Rockwell is the reason to see the film, he also has some great scenes with de Girolamo (a standout here, and quite different from her impressive work as the titular “Ema” from 2019)as Chris develops a desire to protect and warn the student from the near-future she will return to in Santiago. He has his end all planned out, so helping someone avert planned violence that he’s helped implement is a way of atoning for internal guilt he’s developed and ignored over time. We don’t really get an understanding of how he’s developing a conscience after a supposed career kill count of 68, but dying will do that to a person. McDonagh and Malkovich have fun wrestling with whether we should care about Chris’s change of heart, but ultimately we don’t really have to, when it’s this interesting and entertaining.

You can see why spending time with the acerbic seventysomething Chris has become is something Lee is having a hard time saying goodbye to, because spending time with Malkovich as a viewer is so much fun. He’s a fascinating, educated philosopher, often musing into a pocket dictaphone about life, but lately about death. The natural killer instinct that’s been his default mode for his entire career has changed recently, which is first noticed in a quiet conversation Chris has with Lee about moths. He tells Lee he no longer kills the moths he finds in his house, preferring to trap them and “escort them” outdoors. “I feel bad when I put one outside in the rain,” he admits, concerned about what happens to their wings when they’re waterlogged. There are moments when McDonagh is too on-the-nose, like when he tells Lee, “Sometimes I feel more concerned about the moths of Chile than the people of Chile,” an unnecessary line, considering we’ve already pieced that together, but it’s possible it’s something Chris has to hear himself say out loud.

He shows such animal concern and observance while on Easter Island, stopping to watch the wild horses that graze the island’s gorgeous emerald landscape (captured beautifully by McDonagh’s frequent collaborator, cinematographer Ben Davis), fascinated by their peacefulness and simple life. Maybe this new location, with large statues, or “big heads”, and wild horses, provides Chris with open space to reflect while also increasing the weight of what Lee knows he has to do.

The philosophical and theological themes that McDonagh often examines are revisited in “Wild Horse Nine”. Regret partners with reflection, just as guilt pairs with questions about the past and the inevitable finality of the future. These are mostly brought up from Chris’s point of view. It’s not that Lee is incapable of such ruminations; it’s just that he hasn’t given or allowed himself such pause. Pause is pretty much all that Chris has left, and he’s fine with it. Malkovich will earn a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role here, and it will be deserved. It won’t be for the showier aspects of this character, but more for the introspection he displays, whether out loud or in the absorbing narration we hear him speak into his dictaphone, as if he’s at confession or sharing last words before his demise.

RATING: ****