Two CIA men, one island, a coup on the mainland: Martin McDonagh has put Malkovich back in the Best Actor conversation
Malkovich plays a burnt-out agency veteran, Rockwell the partner nobody wants beside them. Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and Tom Waits fill out the cast.
If you follow awards buzz or just lean towards the more cynical side of black comedy, Wild Horse Nine is one film you'll have heard making the rounds this year. It stars John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in what sounds like a proper odd-couple setup, all supervised (or nudged along) by Martin McDonagh — yes, him of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards infamy. This time, he's dropped his characters into the weeks before the 1973 Chilean coup, blended political unrest with pitch-black comedy, and pushed Malkovich into what might well be one of his most watchable roles yet.
Wild Horse Nine is set for a UK cinema release on 6 November.
The premise starts deceptively simple. Malkovich plays Chris, a weathered CIA hand, who gets paired with Rockwell's Lee — a man whose approach to espionage leans more towards the unpredictable (read: probably not good under pressure). Both end up exiled by their boss MJ (Steve Buscemi, always good value), sent off to Easter Island under the pretence of a high-stakes mission but clearly just being kept out of the way whilst the real business is done in Santiago. We’re very much in McDonagh territory here: mismatched men, bad tempers, and a setting that’s beautiful and quietly menacing all at once.
CIA Men Behaving Badly
The film revs up as soon as Chris and Lee hit island life. Lee, predictably, loses the plot over supposed communist threats – so much so that he barely hides his paranoia, making things awkward with the locals and his increasingly disenchanted partner. Chris, meanwhile, is all post-cold-war malaise, drifting from his agency duties and leaning into existential dread over the meaning of his life's work. Their relationship goes south fast, especially as Chris drifts towards two locals (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas, who get far more screen time than the usual "exotic backdrop" characters ever do).
Read more: Scarlett Johansson could win two Oscars in one night — and not in the categories you would guess
MJ, played by Buscemi, is the picture of frustrated authority, and clearly has an agenda of his own — not that either of his agents is entirely clear what that is. Rounding out the cast: Parker Posey (who can do a lot with even minimal dialogue) and Tom Waits (in one of his occasional forays into cinema, always an event). The dialogue is classic McDonagh — harsh, funny, dry as you like — and the tension ratchets up in step with the chaos brewing on the Chilean mainland.
- John Malkovich is Chris, the world-weary veteran CIA agent
- Sam Rockwell plays Lee, the unpredictable, aggressive colleague
- Steve Buscemi turns up as MJ, their exasperated bureau chief
- Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas are two islanders drawn into Chris’s orbit
- Parker Posey and Tom Waits feature in supporting roles
The trailer does a good job selling all this tension and odd-couple energy. It opens with Buscemi's MJ laying down the law and handing out the island assignment, with Lee fuming and Chris rolling his eyes. What looks like it might be a routine job soon spirals into intrigue, with shaky alliances, politicised drinking sessions, and (inevitably) things falling to bits as Chile teeters on the edge of a coup.
The response at the festivals has been robust, to put it mildly. A lot of the attention is on Malkovich, whose Chris sits at the centre of it all — forced out of his comfort zone, forced to decide what sort of man he wants to be, sharpening the script’s sardonic edges as things go sideways. Whether that all translates into Oscar momentum is anyone’s guess (awards bodies are a fickle bunch and Malkovich has been here before), but the conversation has clearly started.