Wild Horse Nine

Last night I went with my nephew to see Wild Horse Nine at the Broadway.  I am a big fan of Martin McDonagh and I think this is one of his best movies.  CIA agents Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich), an aging veteran with dementia and terminal cancer, and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell), his longtime partner and protege, are stationed in Chile to destabilize the government of Salvador Allende prior to staging a coup d'etat in 1973.  The two of them travel to Easter Island, ostensibly so Chris can see the monolithic statues there before he dies, but it is really so Lee can monitor Chris's increasingly problematic behavior for their bureau chief MJ (Steve Buscemi) who fears that he will reveal sensitive information about his involvement in covert CIA operations, such as the Kennedy assassination.  While touring the island, Chris reflects on his life of deception and violence while coming to terms with his mortality and ultimately decides to tell Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailin Salas), two Leftist student activists they meet, about the impending coup so they can leave Chile before the violence begins.  This, in turn, forces Lee to choose between his duty to the CIA and his loyalty to Chris.  This is both a compelling espionage thriller (with a few good action sequences in the third act) and a scathing indictment of U.S. foreign policy but, more than anything, it is a darkly comedic character study in which two morally compromised men search for a small measure of redemption.  The script is razor sharp and I absolutely loved the hilarious banter between the two characters (I laughed out loud multiple times).  Malkovich gives the performance of his career (he won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival this year) as the world weary CIA agent and, while I thoroughly enjoyed the humor, I was especially impressed by his moments of melancholy introspection.  Rockwell more than holds his own as a foil to Malkovich and the rest of the performances are uniformly great (although Parker Posey and Tom Waits have little more than cameos).  I loved the 1970s film aesthetic (especially the Super 8 footage filmed by Lee) and the windswept landscapes on Easter Island are gorgeous.  I really dug this and I think fans of McDonagh will, too.

Note: I was in college when Augusto Pinochet, the military dictator who took power in Chile after the U.S. backed coup d'etat, stepped down.  I remember being horrified over the human rights violations during his regime so it was incredibly unsettling to feel any kind of sympathy for these characters.