05/11/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh.

Director Martin McDonagh has followed an unusual path to filmmaking. He first established his reputation as a playwright in the early 90s with the Leenane trilogy – and more plays followed before he made an assured transition onto the big screen with In Bruges in 2008. This dark but hilarious first feature remains one of my all-time favourite movies. It established the fact that Colin Farrell can act – something he hadn’t really been called upon to do before this point – and, if there’s a more quotable script out there, I’ve yet to discover it.

The films that followed have been variable in quality and I’m sure I’m not the only cinema-goer who favours the Irish-centred projects over the American ones. 2012’s Seven Psychopaths, for instance, felt like a complete misfire. But McDonagh’s last release, The Banshees of Inisherin, reunited Farrell with his In Bruges partner, Brendan Gleeson, and the result was impressive.

Wild Horse Nine is set in neither Ireland nor the USA. It’s 1973 and CIA hit men Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) are based in Santiago, quietly meddling with the left-wing government of President Allende, which is now only months away from the military junta that will result in the deaths of thousands of people. Chris has terminal cancer and, as his illness deepens, he’s become prone to shooting his mouth off about all kinds of things that are supposed to be top secret. So the duo’s exasperated boss, MJ (Steve Buscemi), dispatches them to Easter Island (or Rapa Nui, to use its indigenous name).

For one thing, Chris has always expressed an interest in seeing ‘the big heads’ before his time is up. And for another, well, what harm can he possibly do in such a remote location?

Lee is uncomfortably aware that MJ is expecting him to ‘take care’ of Chris if he steps too far out of line; meanwhile, Lee’s serially unfaithful wife Marge (Parker Posey) keeps phoning him up, complaining of mysterious break-ins at the family home. Chris’s outpourings have lately turned towards awkward mentions of one particular CIA operation that took place back in 1963… and the CIA needs him to shut the fuck up.

The film focuses on a dynamic that McDonagh has always been adept at capturing on film: the intense and fluctuating relationships between men with a propensity for violence. Indeed, this does play out like an older, more jaded version of In Bruges, with the two main characters’ roles reversed. Here, it’s the older man who is the most unpredictable, the younger who is required to step up and take care of any problems. Some of the scenes play out like alternative versions of what has gone before, as if McDonagh’s own advancing years have afforded him a new perspective.

Both Malkovich and Rockwell are in great form and much of their dialogue – while not quite of the insanely rollicking calibre of In Bruges – is acerbically funny. The female roles are less well served. Posey doesn’t have an awful lot to do as the awful Marge, though Mariana di Girolamo as young student, Monika, does at least manage to make the most of her scenes – and there’s a vague father-daughter vibe between Monika and Chris that adds a little warmth to what is essentially a cold-hearted tale. Cinematographer Ben Davis captures Rapa Nui in all its weird majesty and the 1970s period stylings are convincingly done. For my money this is a step down from Banshees but a step up from 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. How well it will fare at the box office is another matter.

Oh, and for nit-picky types like me, I’ll ask one question. Rifle and suitcase? Could the former really fit inside the latter? Answers on a postcard, please.

4.3 stars

Philip Caveney