Martin McDonagh has made a solid career out of brilliant bickering. The writer-director’s career kicked off with In Bruges, which featured Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as a pair of hitmen hiding out in Belgium. More recently The Banshees of Inisherin saw the same actors play pals who fall out hilariously, with some trademark violence weaved in among the laughs. Wild Horse Nine, which premiered at Venice Film Festival this week, offers more of the same with two blokes moaning at each other inbetween gallows humour and outrageous behaviour.

It’s 1973 in Santiago, Chile, just before the military coup swept Augusto Pinochet to power. Two CIA officers, Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) have earned a break having evidently facilitated the changing of the guard, so they fly to nearby Easter Island for an unspecified mix of business and pleasure. They’re both experienced killers, men who’ve not only seen it all but likely shot bullets into it, too. Chris has helped unsettle and overthrow several regimes in his time, and may even have had a hand in the assassination of American president John F. Kennedy.

If that wild life in the shadows sounds like the makings of a great memoir, well, Chris is working on that as well. He begins recording fascinating excerpts – including a bizarrely amusing tangent about dinosaurs – while MJ (Steve Buscemi), the pair’s boss, makes increasingly concerned calls to Lee from Santiago. Chris’s secret-shedding might make him too dangerous to keep alive but the revelation he has terminal cancer means he’s out of time and reasons to keep quiet. Lee, meanwhile, has further long-distance agony during Stateside chats with his philandering wife Marge (Parker Posey). Phone calls are key in the film and Chris’s brief conversation with his estranged brother (the ever-gruff Tom Waits) is among its most heartfelt moments.

Malkovich, more than any plot shenanigans, is the main attraction. His remarkable ability to imbue caustic Chris with vulnerability will surely lead to award nominations. His screen partner Rockwell, on fine form himself, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his last performance for McDonagh in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri so there is a precedent for this kind of spiky, funny performance to bag a statue.

The women in the film are slightly underused – two Chilean students Chris and Lee meet at the airport (Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) turn up again later, but really aren’t given much to do. It’s a shame given the director’s history of creating exceptional, layered roles for women, as he did for the Oscar-winning Frances McDormand in Three Billboards. Still, this doesn’t detract too heavily from another bitingly funny, bracingly tough feature with top performances that’ll leave you with plenty to ponder once the end credits roll.

Details

  • Director: Martin McDonagh
  • Starring: John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi
  • Release date: November 6 (in UK cinemas)

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