Wild Horse Nine

By Joanna Langfield

Martin McDonagh’s newest black comedy feeds off of familiar territory for the filmmaker. But what a wild ride it is for us.

Few write “buddy pictures” with the arch compassion McDonagh has brought to several of his previous works. Here, a glorious John Malcovich teams with Sam Rockwell to play CIA agents, stationed in Santiago during the 1973 Chilean coup. They’re about to go on vacation together, to check out Easter Island. And if you think that’s a curious bit of business wait till you see what happens after that.

The multi-layered story reveals itself slowly, deliberately. I won’t give away any plot points because it is too much fun to watch as piece by piece comes together, although some of those pieces don’t quite fit as nicely as others. But, really, who cares about a few purposely wild detours when we’re having this good a time, feeling a full fledged hit to our bullseye of emotions. Yes, we’re laughing. Out loud. But we’re also a little scared. And more than a little sad, too.

And then there’s the terrific cast. Parker Posey and Tom Waits show up for a few punchy minutes and Steve Buscemi, a treat as always, gets to deliver one line that is so perfect for the time and character, I literally gasped upon hearing it. (We’ll talk once you’ve seen it.) But it’s Sam Rockwell and John Malcovich who carry us along on this darkly giddy road. Yes, Malcovich is fantastic as a veteran operative who’s seen it all. But this, his best work in years, wouldn’t work as well as it does without his counterpart, the somewhat straight man of the team, Sam Rockwell. This duo isn’t just great casting, its great actors, working together to bring out the greatness in each other.