OVERVIEW
In Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh once again uses an exotic location and the undeniable chemistry of two great actors to explore remorse and redemption in a delightfully entertaining and darkly hilarious manner. It follows longtime CIA partners Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) on a wild one week trip to Easter Island, where Lee must grant Chris his dying wish, killing him peacefully before his body and mind succumb to cancer. Before he does so, Lee must also accomplish another mission, assigned by the CIA: discover where Chris hid the rifle that was used in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
BACKGROUND
Just like In Bruges, Wild Horse Nine began with an excursion by writer-director McDonagh. More than a decade ago, he traveled alone to Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, hoping the place might inspire him the way Bruges had, and became fascinated by both the Moai and the wild horses roaming around them. He spent years trying different versions of a story built around an older and a younger man, at one point making them father and son and at another two actors, but nothing quite worked until he connected Rapa Nui’s place within Chile to the CIA’s documented covert activity in the country during the Allende years, which finally gave him the bones of the story.
McDonagh wrote the role of Lee specifically for Sam Rockwell, as the two had already worked together in Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (for which the actor won his first and only Oscar), and the Broadway play A Behanding in Spokane, while the character of Chris finally gave him the opportunity to work with John Malkovich, an actor he had been trying to collaborate with for years but had been unable to until now. The film was shot largely on location in Rapa Nui and Santiago with a mostly Chilean crew, with a local islander present on set each day to help the production respect the island’s culture and historic sites.
THE REVIEW
It’s an eclectic, breezy film that continues McDonagh’s fascination with male camaraderie. It is the fourth time across his five films that he places a complicated friendship between men near the center of the story, usually pairing contrasting personalities whose loyalty to each other is eventually put to the test. Yet, whereas Seven Psychopaths and The Banshees of Inisherin build entirely different stories around this dynamic, this is the first time McDonagh feels like he is treading the same ground, making the film basically a redo of In Bruges. While that can make the story often feel predictable and a bit redundant, it also shows McDonagh’s maturation as a filmmaker, now incorporating the political concerns and more mournful character study he developed in his previous two films, resulting in what may be his most mature film yet.
Below the fantastic dialogue and captivating rapport between Malkovich and Rockwell, Wild Horse Nine is a film about institutions and moral compromise. It questions how long one can remain loyal to a system once it becomes impossible to look away from what that loyalty makes you complicit in. Chris jokingly states that he has killed men in countries Lee can’t even spell, yet as he reaches the inevitable end of his life, he can’t help but look back at his actions with utter repulsion. He knows full well that the things he accomplished in the name of duty and loyalty were, in the end, plain monstrosities.
Yet, the film never quite gets Chris off the hook by granting him full redemption. Yes, he does a few good deeds for Monica (Mariana di Girolamo), telling her what is to come in her country and how she could be better equipped to handle it, even if he inherently puts her life in more danger by involving her in the first place. Yet Chris is still alone. His brother doesn’t want to talk to him even in his dying days, while the only real connection he has formed in the world is with his partner, a relationship born out of duty, though Lee is equally miserable in his own way. Can there possibly be any redemption for people who helped drive entire countries into sh*t?
As can be expected of McDonagh, the filmmaker wraps these existential questions in a very entertaining package. Simply watching Chris and Lee interact, either between themselves or with others, is a hoot. Rockwell brings his usual charisma to Lee; even if the character is very close to the kind he has specialized in, his comic timing is still fantastic, with two great scenes where he talks to his wife, played by Parker Posey, on the phone. The bigger revelation of the two is Malkovich, in what may be his best role since Being John Malkovich. He is especially hilarious in playing his character’s dementia, but always balances that with the tragedy underneath. His scenes with Monica are the heart of the film, and he truly makes us believe every word through the pauses he takes. Mariana di Girolamo is a great supporting presence, even if the script doesn’t give her enough to match the impact Kerry Condon had in The Banshees of Inisherin. Closing out the cast, Steve Buscemi also brings plenty of laughs to MJ, especially through his not-so-well-hidden addiction.
Technically, the film boasts gorgeous and colorful cinematography that makes the green of the grass and the colors of the costumes pop, while Carter Burwell enhances the quirkiness with vocals and exotic instruments. The film is fantastically paced, always moving fast while still allowing reflective moments, such as Chris’ encounters with the horses, to resonate.
FINAL THOUGHTS
After a little thought, I still think this film lands slightly below The Banshees of Inisherin as the pinnacle of McDonagh’s career so far, with that film hitting a few raw, melancholic notes that it never quite reaches here. Yet Wild Horse Nine feels like the most well-rounded compilation of McDonagh’s career yet. It combines the more mature approach to loneliness of that film with the political themes of Three Billboards, the broader comedy of Seven Psychopaths, and basically the same narrative as In Bruges. It is easy to wish McDonagh had chosen a different itinerary, but when the formula works this effortlessly, and you have Malkovich and Rockwell extracting every laugh and every bit of sorrow from the script, you are more than happy to retrace a few familiar steps.
- 1Hadestown: The Musical
- 2Tuner
- 3The Weight
- 4Wicker
- 5Minotaur
- 6Wild Horse Nine#6 of 188
- 1Minotaur
- 2Wild Horse Nine#2 of 37
- 3The Man I Love
- 4Club Kid
- 5The Unknown
- Where to watch
- Coming soonNov 6, 2026
- Where to watch
- Coming soonNov 5, 2026
Play trailer
- Original title
- Wild Horse Nine
- Director
- Martin McDonagh
- Cast
- John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Mariana di Girolamo, Ailín Salas, Tom Waits, Parker Posey, Paola Giannini
- Rated
- R
- Screenwriter
- Martin McDonagh
- Composer
- Carter Burwell
- Cinematography
- Ben Davis
- Editor
- Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
- Country
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $5 million