Movie Review: Wild Horse Nine

Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine is the director’s most heartfelt film to date. The Oscar-winning director of films like In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri has built a career making movies about men (and one woman, in the case of Three Billboards) going through internal turmoil and struggle, and he’s shown these stories through dark humor, violence, and cynicism. Wild Horse Nine has all of that but also features a sincerity absent from McDonagh’s previous films.

Wild Horse Nine opens in Santiago, Chile, in 1973. Like past McDonagh films, Wild Horse Nine is a twist on the workplace comedy. It follows two men who are both co-workers and friends: Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell). They are CIA agents who are stationed in Santiago with their boss, MJ (Steve Buscemi), to prevent a rising socialist government.

Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich in WILD HORSE NINE. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Chris is sick and has accepted the fact that his life will be over shortly, which has made him a bit of a loose cannon. He’s addicted to morphine and threatens to leak what really happened in the assassination of JFK and other agency secrets. MJ sends Chris and Lee to Easter Island for a break, though something more sinister awaits Chris.

Malkovich gives his best performance in years as Chris. He’s equally uproarious and heartbreaking, and a perfect actor to bring McDonagh’s script to life. I’ve never felt more sympathy for Malkovich in a movie than I have here. Despite his curmudgeonly spirit and career as a killer, Malkovich plays Chris with a relieving acceptance of the end of his life. He’s light, free, and just trying to tie up his final loose ends. Frequent McDonagh collaborator Sam Rockwell is equally as good as a man torn between loyalty to his friend and his job. Malkovich and Rockwell have wonderful chemistry, bickering back-and-forth like an old married couple, but also showing respect for each other as men who started off as colleagues and became friends.

From L to R: Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, and John Malkovich in WILD HORSE NINE. Photo by Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2026 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Wild Horse Nine is a movie about a man coming to terms with his life and a friendship coming to an end set on a gorgeous, sun-soaked island. McDonagh’s screenplay is filled with humor, suspense, tragedy, and sweetness. In one scene, Chris will be shooting up a car he’s noticed is following him; in another, he and Lee are deep in a conversation about the correlation between a country’s openness to LGBTQ+ rights and democracy and the quality of its cheese; in another, Chris’s sickness flares up. McDonagh balances everything the intricate plot elements and emotion perfectly. Shot mostly on location on Easter Island, Wild Horse Nine is arguably McDonagh’s best-looking film. It’s bright, colorful, and full of life, a seemingly perfect counter to the terminal Chris.

Wild Horse Nine features a lot of the hallmarks of a McDonagh movie. It’s a buddy movie about two men going through something, set somewhere unconventional. But McDonagh adds heart and sympathy to Wild Horse Nine, making the film his saddest and most mature film to date.

TL;DR Review of Wild Horse Nine

Martin McDonagh’s most mature and sincere film to date.
An excellent ensemble, led by one of the best performances of John Malkovich’s career.
Smartly written and a beautiful setting.
A perfect balance of suspence, comedy, and tragedy

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