★★★★★
Wild Horse Nine is proof that you can be a serious action thriller and be unbelievably funny at the same time, without compromising the quality of one over the other. The 2000s and 2010s were plagued with serious action films that relied too heavy on comedy, as well as action comedies which were too much action and horrendously unfunny. Not to say that Wild Horse Nine is an action comedy in that sense – it isn’t – but you get what I mean. It takes itself seriously, but it also knows how to have a bit of fun. And when it does have fun, it sure as hell makes sure you do too.
Not that this should come as a surprise though, given Martin McDonagh is at the helm. His track record is impeccable, and on Wild Horse Nine he takes some of the things that made two of his best films – In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin – so damn good and fuses them to create an irresistible whole. Wild Horse Nine is set in 1973 Chile, where CIA agents Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) are stationed as they attempt to, in Chris’ own words, destabilise its democracy. The catch? Chris has cancer, and it’s terminal. He’s forgetting stuff, behaving like a loose canon and saying the wrong things to the wrong people. Which is a problem for their boss MJ (Steve Buscemi), who wants Lee to kill Chris while on a trip to Easter Island. Unbeknownst to MJ, Chris has already asked Lee to kill him on Easter Island, putting him out of the misery that is terminal cancer. He’s lived his life, seen plenty and knows it’s time to call it a day. Lee is his only friend, and so he’s entrusted him with this massive favour.
In Chile, we find out just how much of a liability Chris really is as he starts spilling state secrets to two Chilean students at the airport. Chris’ recklessness reaches MJ back in Santiago as his stories heavily imply that he was directly involved in the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy. “Sometimes you have to do a horrible thing for the greater good“, he says. While on their trip, Chris starts work on his memoirs via dictaphone, discussing a number of his secret operations as well as, well, dinosaurs. There’s a great moment early on when Chris also explains to Lee how democracy ultimately leads to homosexuality, which in turn leads to producing good cheeses. Case in point? The Netherlands. There’s also a brilliant bit about confusing soldiers by sticking a totally weird photo on a briefcase bomb, for example a midget holding a basketball. All of this serves as more and more reason for Chris to be offed by his best mate before his memoirs make it to that fateful day in 1963.
Wild Horse Nine is full of fantastic one liners and comedic set pieces which never detract from the story at hand. They serve as a great insight into the dynamic between Chris and Lee, whose friendship is placed under the microscope by McDonagh in a way that is tender at times, but also full of tension. John Malkovich has been praised to high heaven for his portrayal of Chris, and rightly so. If he doesn’t win Best Actor at the Academy Awards next year it will be a travesty. There are strong supporting performances from Parker Posey and Mariana di Girolamo too, and it’s di Girolamo in particular who comes close to stealing the show multiple times.
With Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh has successfully managed to combine the tenderness of The Bandshees of Inisherin with the intensity of In Bruges. Wild Horse Nine exists on the intersection of these two films, becoming something that is even bigger and even better than everything which McDonagh has done before. Easter Island is a beautiful setting for the events of the film, and it’s perhaps one of the most picturesque films of the year alongside Fjord and La Bola Negra. Wild Horse Nine is as close to perfection as Martin McDonagh is ever going to get, and it’s up there as one of the best films of the year without a shadow of a doubt.
