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Some directors just excel when they stick to what they know. Take Martin McDonagh for example – after his feature debut, In Bruges, rightfully caught everyone’s attention, the writer/director’s output since has mostly focused on flawed, sad men, trying to work their way through emotional epiphanies despite having the limited social tools to do so. The likes of Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Banshees Of Inisherin have all given us various incarnations of McDonagh’s series of “sad man” movies and he’s gone and added another in the form of Wild Horse Nine – a dark, comedy thriller that acts like everyone in a James Ellroy novel suddenly work up and had a devastating existential crisis after a lifetime of violently manipulating human history.
But can McDonagh still manage to find new things to say as yet another monstrous man in his winter years faces regret, while still spouting witty barbs so sharp that could punch through steel?
The year is 1973 and fellow CIA agents Chris Carlisle and Lee Chesterfield have arrived at Easter Island to take some temporary time from destabilising the local governments to take in the sights of the famous stone heads that pepper the place. However, putting something on a strain on the trip (like destabilising countries isn’t stressful enough), is the fact that Chris not only has terminal cancer, but has entered various stages of dementia that’s not only affected his memory, but also has made him something of a liability that’s got his bosses nervous. While Lee, being his only friend, tirelessly tries to keep him in line, Chris’ deteriorating state and growing morphine addiction means that when he’s not mouthing off to left-wing students about the future fate of their country, he’s claiming to write a tell-all autobiography that’ll detail his direct involvement with such global events as the Bay of Pigs and the assassinations of Patrice Lumumba and John F. Kennedy.
While Lee acts as a buffer between his bosses and his friend, he knows the true reason why he’s there and bizarrely it’s something Chris and his agitated bosses both want. Both bureau chief MJ and Chris want Lee to ultimately shoot him, but for very different reasons – however, due to Chris’ failing memory, Lee can’t be sure if his friend actually remembers asking him to put him out of his misery while in Easter Island or not. Wanting to shoot his friend for the right reasons, he continually puts off requests from MJ to finish the job and get the fuck out of there, but while both men twist and turn within their own existential issues – and progressively get more irritated with one another – is there a growing chance that Chris could blow the upcoming regime change he himself is working to organise?
While I have to admit that I initially was worried that McDonagh was treading on overly familiar ground, it seems that there’s still plenty of things for him to say when in comes to flawed, aging men looking inward in order to make sense of their questionable lives. However, while the filmmaker has previously cast his mischievous eye over the likes of hitmen, psychos, racist police officers and various disgruntled Irishmen, it seems like casting John Malkovich as a dying CIA agent provides the embittered sweet spot that keeps the whole thing fresh. Sure, the more cynical of you may point out that it’s basically In Bruges with an actor and location change, but while there are admittedly some surface level similarities, both McDonagh and his leads ensure that this darkly funny, fucked-up trip to Easter Island can stand on its own two feet as its players are forced to glimpse into their own mortality.
As per usual, these are reprehensible men we are required to follow, who have worked to do unspeakable things on the political landscape that, invariably, have changed the world for the worse. And yet, in true McDonagh style, both of them are witty, charismatic and fun guys to be around despite the fact that they’re prickly, cynical killers. Sam Rockwell’s Lee has a boozy wife who cheats on him and grows ever more exasperated when trying to keep his mentor contained, but still wants to give his friend a dignified exit even though his bosses are screaming at him to pull the trigger ASAP. He’s a wonderful straight man, constantly getting wrong-footed by his increasingly erratic buddy and delivering priceless reaction shots from under a 70s mustache – but as great as he is, it’s John Malkovich’s ailing spook who steals the show.
The actor has always been most at home playing vastly intelligent men who views the world and everyone in it with a certain amount of contempt, but here he’s also expertly juggling that acerbic wit with a genuine sense of fear as he struggles to make sense of a lifetime of unspeakable acts and near-constant lies. Much of the movie gets great mileage out of the fact he simply won’t keep his mouth shut any more and it’s darkly hilarious to watch spout terrifying truths to horrified passers by about their immediate future (“Your country’s gonna get fucked.”) or share numerous rambling arguments with his friend (“Don’t pull rank on me. I’ve killed people in countries you can’t even spell!”).
Of course, this gives McDonagh ample opportunity to dive in with that notoriously spiky dialogue he loves to play with and it continues to give the film that sense of amusing regret that he’s so good at creating. But he really need to copywrite the term “depressed bellylaugh”, because for all the regret and navel gazing on show, Wild Horse Nine is extremely funny.
While there may be a sense that some of the other characters (Parker Posey’s liquor sodden adulteress, Steve Buscemi’s stressed boss, Tom Waits’ estranged brother) are glossed over a little, it’s because they’re all mostly extraneous when compared to the fucked-up double act of Malkovich and Rockwell as they ramble and bicker about such things as the etiquette of shooting someome while you’re eating, or whether dinosaurs went to heaven. In fact, a devastating scene where Chris tells progressively haunted student at a bar what political horrors await her should she stay in the country may both see Malkovich and McDonagh operating at the height of their powers in a way that’s both profoundly moving and utterly terrifying.
While Wild Horse Nine does admittedly treads on some familiar, McDonagh, ground (crumbling masculinity, oodles of regret, dudes talking bollocks), the insertion of the political angle and the ramifications the characters have had on the world gives things an even more, amusingly maudlin spin that makes the humour even more delicious and the darkness even more opaque. These are undeniably awful people who have caused irreparable harm to entire countries – but they’re still intriguingly human, and they talk about stupid shit – like dwarves playing basketball – just as much as we do.
