CIA agents Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich) and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell) in the waiting lounge of the airport in Santiago, Chile waiting for their flight to Easter Island, er, Rapa Nui.
From the Aran Islands to Easter Island
Trying to explain Martin McDonagh’s “brand” can be tricky.
The writer and director of Wild Horse Nine is best known for The Banshees of Inisherin, which featured failing relationships, bitter banter, fisticuffs, suicide, and self mutilation. Not to mention awesome Irish scenes. Death, dying are constants in his movies and plays. But not in a downer kind of way.
Some either give credit to or blame his Irishness for what can be called cruel humor. McDonagh is defiantly Irish even though he was raised in England. He’s an Irish citizen and doesn’t hold a British passport. His mom was born in Co. Sligo, his dad in Co. Galway.
You could call his”brand” black comedy, as the studio’s promotion machine insists, but you’d be missing the element of humanity that keeps coming through in his lead characters; his sad clowns.
Chris Carlisle, the dying, morphine-addicted CIA agent played by John Malkovich, has seen it all. When he tells two Chilean students they can march all they want to protest but. only a bullet to the head will change things, they’re shocked.
So, where’s his humanity? In the truths he starts telling. As he faces his final days, agent Carlisle, using a handheld voice recorder (high tech for 1973) admits to his involvement in history-changing CIA operations up to and including Dallas November 1963, which is why his buddy who annoys him endlessly, fellow agent Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell), has been ordered to kill him.
This is McDonagh’s fifth full-length feature film. In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012), Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) are his previous releases. If you’ve seen any of them, you know what you’re in for with Wild Horse Nine. What I didn’t expect in this one was the history lesson. Chile elected a socialist president named Salvador Allende in 1970. In 1973 forces opposed to his presidency staged a coup d'état and he killed himself. Or he was killed. Whatever the case, Nixon and Kissinger knew what the military had in mind for President Allende. So did agents Carlisle and Chesterfield.
McDonagh confronts the reality that his movies defy easy description. “A black comedy political thriller” is how Wild Horse Nine is described for marketing purposes. But the real description comes when Carlisle talks about living in a “downbeat Western.” That tag line won’t sell many tickets, but it’s true.
Oscar-worthy?
I heard McDonagh on a podcast talk about how much he enjoyed the whole Oscars process. Few filmmakers would admit wanting to win. He does and jokes about negative campaigns against other candidates like it’s an election. Which it is.
For the record, he won his first Oscar for Feature Short for Six Shooter. This 26 minute movie was partially financed by the Government of Ireland. You can watch it on You Tube. If you’re not familiar with the McDonagh Brand, this is a good place to start. Brendan Gleeson is excellent and has a scene with his son Domnhail who is now a big star on his own.
McDonagh’s four full length films after that have collected 17 Oscar nominations with wins for Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Wild Horse Nine will probably earn John Malkovich a Best Actor nomination and McDonagh another Best Screenplay nod.