Director: Martin McDonagh
Cast: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Parker Posey
Screenplay: Martin McDonagh
117 mins. Rated R for pervasive language, some strong violence, drug use and sexual references.

Playwright-turned-director Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin) has truly mastered the art of the auteur with his latest film, Wild Horse Nine, a movie that is so purely McDonagh it might’ve been drawn from his veins. We could fault him for essentially making In Bruges again, but why complain when the work is this good anyway, likely his best film since his opening salvo, a buddy film about a vacation-gone-bloody.

The year is 1973, and CIA officers Chris (John Malkovich, Being John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell, Jojo Rabbit) have been dispatched from Santiago (on the verge of a coup d’etat) to Easter Island for a little rest and relaxation and so that Chris can see the Moai, or heads. Chris has been struggling with with his memory as of recent, and Lee’s keeping an eye on him, ensuring he doesn’t divulge too many CIA secrets on their trip. As their time on Easter Island runs down, secrets from their past and direction from CIA bureau chief MJ (Steve Buscemi, Monsters Inc.) attempt to derail their whole reason for being there.

It’s like Martin McDonagh took his central relationship for In Bruges and just catapulted it a few decades further and placed his plot a few decades in the past for Wild Horse Nine. It’s not a knock, some directors spent their whole careers with far less interesting dynamics than the ones at play in McDonagh’s works, and I appreciate how he approaches a lot of traditional crime and espionage tropes in a way that no one else really is. He feels like a genre filmmaker at his core, but his films require more attention and introspection than one would assume on the surface.

Relationships are the core of McDonagh’s work, never more so than in The Banshees of Inisherin, but with Wild Horse Nine, he’s examining the lifelong work partner/spouse relationship with Chris and Lee as, essentially, an old married couple, bickering about plans and rehashing old arguments for an eternity. These two don’t always like each other, but there is a love between them, and the very idea of that relationship ending is emotional and heartrending throughout. Malkovich is so layered and purposeful with his performance as Chris, a man struggling with health and memory issues, a man confronting age and mortality in the way most of us can understand, whether we like it or not.

Rockwell’s Lee is not the bombastic player his role in Three Billboards would be, but he has a harder time being much of the audience surrogate here, even if he knows more than he’s letting on. The central heart of the story is the eventually loss of a best friend and the fundamental question of who we are when we aren’t associated with another. Lee’s own marriage has crumbled around him and he doesn’t seem to care, but seeing Chris’s slow degeneration is devastating to him. Of course, like any old married couple, he’s going to avoid that conversation to the very end.

The plot of Wild Horse Nine, involving state secrets and an aging CIA officer with a big mouth, is pretty entertaining on its own, but the film has the tone and vibes of a hangout movie; think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood over Reservoir Dogs. The movie is deliberately-paced to make it feel more relaxed even though there is a ticking clock element introduced rather early, and the subplot of Chris’s connection to a young female student vacationing on Easter Island gives a generation gap perspective that also aids the 1973 comparisons to today, even though it doesn’t use this connection or the student characters very well when the film’s third act kicks into gear.

The style of the film is lush and inviting, with lovely vistas of Easter Island, cool-as-hell fashion choices and outfits that POP, as well as musical choices and a score that gives the characters a COOL factor throughout. It’s a movie that looks good and feels laid back, like hanging out with some friends for a few hours. From a technical standpoint, everything really looks and sounds incredible.

This is easily McDonagh’s most accessible film since In Bruges. While it never reaches the highs of his theatrical debut, Wild Horse Nine should be able to bring in and convert new fans. It’s got a script full of snappy dialogue and a central relationship that really holds the picture together. It’s finale is a little simple and the subplot with the students doesn’t get fully realized, but plenty of this movie works, especially the atmosphere and tone of its “hangout film” aesthetic. With two terrific co-leads, Wild Horse Nine is rambling, often very funny, and occasionally very sweet and melancholic, well worth a celluloid trip to Easter Island.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• For more Martin McDonagh: In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri