Images courtesy of The Walt Disney Company.
It’s easy to assume that after In Bruges (2008) and Banshees of Inisherin (2022) that another McDonagh film about two sad guys would be derivative, but Wild Horse Nine (2026) is him at his most introspective, interesting, and least Irish.
Wild Horse Nine follows CIA agents Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) holidaying on Easter Island after destabilising the communist Chilean government in 1973, to see “the big heads.” Lee is a burnt-out divorcee going through a mid-life crisis, and Chris is a 70-year-old agent as old as the agency itself, who happens to be dying of cancer. Death has a habit of making people reflective, and in this case, dredging up long-buried secrets and shames in the search for atonement. Chris’ desire to write a memoir about his life creates a divide between him and his superior MJ (Steve Buscemi), especially when it comes to his role in the [REDACTED] in Dallas, 1963.
In classic McDonagh fashion, the film gets you drunk on the comedy of life and then sobers you up with the melancholy of death. The dark comedy of the film is hilarious, but there’s always the constant, underlying dread of Chris’ death looming over every interaction. The casting of the film plays such a vital role in this, with Malkovich and Rockwell performing authentically in both the film’s comedic and tragic sensibilities.
McDonagh departs from his usual stories about European misery in favour of an American spy ‘thriller.’ The distinctly not Irish Chris and Lee are such fun and interesting characters that play off established buddy cop tropes, but the script’s emotional depth and grounded writing elevates potential cheap pastiches to create a unique and distinct character dynamic. It perfectly contrasts the large-scale story of government espionage and the inception of a coup d'etat, with the more intimate story about a dying man atoning for his past sins.
Despite the film’s two-hour runtime, the tightness of the script and natural fluidity of the dialogue makes the time fly. In what could have been a fatal mistake, McDonagh’s script makes an explicit decision to eliminate most aspects of suspense. The film hides no secrets from the audience and doesn’t follow the conventional structure associated with the genre, instead deftly meandering to the end, just as Chris’ character is slowly approaching his end.
The cinematography of the film has a strong and consistent visual aesthetic that reflects the themes and tone of the film. Hands-off camerawork and minimalistic editing make the quiet introspective sequences – of which there is no shortage – more contemplative and impactful, and the few ‘action sequences’ are restrained from using flashy camerawork to remind the audience of the grim nature of the CIA’s work.
Wild Horse Nine is a ‘boring’ spy thriller, and it’s all the better for it.
Wild Horse Nine opens in cinemas November 5th. For tickets and more info, click here.
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