Mad horses on Easter Island

Wild Horse Nine by Martin McDonagh is a perfect film: in terms of direction, acting, screenplay and running time. It seamlessly blends and delves into – without a single misstep – crime, action, memoir and comedy, all set against the backdrop of American politics on the international stage. McDonagh brings his irreverent flair, brimming with dark humour, to bear on the account of the 1973 coup in Chile and glosses over many skeletons in the US secret services’ cupboards, from the Bay of Pigs to the Kennedy assassination.

Whilst the director’s voice is Anglo-Irish, to bring the sense of Yankee guilt to life, McDonagh – in a shrewd move – has, together with the talented casting director Sarah Halley Finn, chosen three American actors of the very highest calibre: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi, each one more talented than the last; although this time, Malkovich outshines them all. We are in Santiago, Chile, shortly before the 1973 coup d’état. Here, CIA agents Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) are laying the groundwork for Pinochet’s assault on La Moneda against President Salvador Allende, keeping a close eye on students deemed too left-wing. At the same time, Lee is recording Chris’s memories, because, due to a serious illness, Chris’s memory is fading. Chris’s ‘skill’ in numerous operations in the Congo and Guatemala comes to light, but alongside the personal motivation behind these recordings lies the CIA’s concern regarding certain details of JFK’s assassination.

Their section head, MJ (Steve Buscemi), sends Chris and Lee to Easter Island and, under the pretence of a holiday, silences Chris, who has been talking out of turn in public, revealing an uncharacteristic concern for the future of a pair of rebellious schoolgirls (Mariana di Girolamo plays Monica and Ailín Salas plays Alicia). The stay on Easter Island could be Chris’s last chance to come to terms with himself and ask whether his sudden penchant for the truth is the result of incipient dementia or the need to free himself from the obligation to cover up his country’s covert strategies. Whatever the answer, there remains a sense of satisfaction at the success of certain operations – which have cost the lives of many innocent people – and a sense of fulfilment in an effective, precise and professional modus operandi. Chris and Lee are tourists on Easter Island, but they still carry a Calibre 9 in their pockets (hence the ‘Nine’ in the title). With no missions to complete, the enigmatic heads of Rapa Nui delve into the darkest corners of his memories, and Chris prefers, therefore, to watch the wild horses, governed solely by instinct.

It is against this backdrop that the film takes a unique, moving and amusing turn, centring on the friendship between two men, bound together despite the carnage they have wrought. Rockwell is an excellent foil to Malkovich’s cynical, absent-minded, cruel, tender and mad character. Malkovich, for his part, allows senility to take hold of every line on his face, pulling invisible strings – like a puppeteer of himself – to shape them. It is astonishing to see how many nuances he manages to convey through subtle facial movements, with those liquid eyes in which death peeks through, only to make us realise he was just joking. Malkovich, who often plays dangerous and unsettling characters, strikes a balance between humour and sadness (he’s very likely to be nominated for an Oscar), drawing on a polished script, without a single comma out of place, penned by McDonagh himself, as in his previous films.

Far more compelling – in this writer’s view – than that of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), where it certainly benefited from the presence of Frances McDormand, a mother fighting the local police following the unsolved murder of her daughter. Two Oscars were thus awarded to McDormand and to ‘Officer’ Rockwell, who also made a welcome appearance in *Wilde Horses Nine*. Compared to Three Billboards, The Spirits of the Island (2022) was far more special, with a strongly pacifist message, but it put some viewers off (though certainly not this writer) due to its Grand Guignol-esque tone. It was director of photography Ben Davis – the same as in Wilde Horses Nine (and Three Billboards), who managed to preserve the magic of the imaginative island of Inisherin for Santiago and Easter Island as well. In truth, every element of Wilde Horses Nine is a masterpiece: the production design by Denis Schnegg (Paul Thomas Anderson’s *The Hidden Thread*), the costumes by Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh, evoking the 1970s with their sepia-toned and tobacco-stained colours; the make-up and hair, both historically accurate and eccentric, with their tight shirts and flared trousers, by Emma Scott (who also worked on Andrea Arnold’s *Wuthering Heights*).