John Malkovich Will Blow Your Mind and Break Your Heart in Wild Horse Nine: Review

There are many ways to tell that an actor is giving the performance of a lifetime, but here’s one subtle one from Martin McDonagh’s new movie Wild Horse Nine: There are a few scenes in which John Malkovich sits outside on a grassy hill, narrating memories of his life into an old-fashioned tape recorder — and there’s a bug crawling on him as he does it. It’s not glaringly obvious, but even on a relatively modest-sized screen, you can see the flicker of tiny insectoid life twitching on the shoulder or lapel of his period-accurate blazer. Malkovich doesn’t show any signs of noticing, though, any of the times it happens. He’s that locked in. Touches like that highlight the remarkable nature of his mind-blowing work in the dark comedy, a performance that gives Wild Horse Nine so much of its power — a movie small in scale but mighty in its themes. Set in 1973, Wild Horse Nine stars Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA agents who have gotten used to the darker aspects of their job — specifically, the overthrowing foreign governments part, no matter the collateral damage. As longtime friends and partners, Chris (Malkovich) and Lee (Rockwell) have gotten close, but their boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) has serious doubts about Chris’s continued fitness to serve, especially as Chris has been a lot more loose-lipped lately about what he might have been doing in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963. To MJ, Chris is a problem to be solved — by Lee, ideally, during their upcoming visit to Rapa Nui, known popularly at that point in history as Easter Island. Chris has his own plans for the trip, however, and is still cunning enough to plan accordingly. McDonagh’s taken on a range of stories since expanding his career from just theater to the screen, but he has shown an interest in stories about male friendship with a fair bit of violence in the mix, from the bleakness of In Bruges’s morality-obsessed assassins to the brutal friendship break-up in The Banshees of Inisherin. He’s branching out here, and not just by keeping Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson on the bench — instead grounding the complicated dynamic between Chris and Lee in the complicated assignments they do on behalf of the U.S. Government, your tax dollars at work. Chris and Lee go to Rapa Nui to see “the big heads” because it’s an easy trip to make from their home station of Santiago, Chile — where, a few months in the future, an American-orchestrated coup will lead to a military dictatorship and a whole lot of death. Representing the Chilean people are Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailín Salas), two young students also visiting Rapa Nui and seemingly unaware that their democracy is in jeopardy. It’s this looming threat that gives Wild Horse Nine an edge that might be described as political, except it doesn’t really belong to any specific political party. It’s instead an indictment of the way power is abused in all corners of the globe, the ease with which totalitarian systems become something that’s impossible to escape or rebel against. All you can do is choose between getting caught or being shot in the street. You’re dead no matter what, but at least one way you’re free. Wild Horse Nine (Searchlight Pictures) As Chris, Malkovich is a man of secrets who’s grown tired of keeping them, instead letting them leak out into the atmosphere — one of his signature touches as an actor is a light offhandness that eases the darkest comments past our defenses, something McDonagh deploys quite elegantly as Chris picks at the flimsy illusion of democracy. Hanging heavily over his shoulders, also, is a haunting sense of mortality; the ghosts of a man’s regrets. By contrast, Rockwell (who previously won an Oscar for his bombastic performance in McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) gets to play the steady voice of reason. Malkovich doesn’t overshadow Rockwell, though. Instead, Rockwell stays out of his way, ensuring their dynamic together is never short of captivating. It’s very much their movie, though Buscemi is reliably effective with his minimal screen time, and although Parker Posey is literally playing “wife on phone,” she does manage to do something with the limitations of the role. Heck, even Tom Waits steals the tiny corner of the movie he shows up in. In addition to the top-notch acting, Wild Horse Nine delivers a few big twists and explosive moments of violence — impressive for a movie this small in scope. It also serves, intentionally or not, as incredibly effective advertising on behalf of the Rapa Nui tourism board. The movie was largely shot there (only the second film to ever use it as a location, following 1994’s Rapa Nui), and those aforementioned “big heads” haunt the frame, offering an austere perspective on the people fumbling about nearby. It genuinely seems like a beautiful place, like stepping outside of time, reminding us how long a road history travels. The only major issue one might have with Wild Horse Nine is that even after seeing it, the meaning behind its title feels unclear, beyond invoking the idea of clandestine missions. Maybe that’s on purpose, though — one last reminder that as much as Chris might spill his secrets, the world’s mysteries endure. Their meaning as inscrutable as faces carved millennia ago. Wild Horse Nine gallops into theaters on November 6th, 2026. Check out the trailer below.