Wild Horse Nine (2026) Review – Malkovich and Rockwell’s Glorious, Guilt-Ridden CIA Two-Hander

Our Rating: ★★★★☆ 8.5/10

Martin McDonagh has always written about men who talk too much and feel too late. In Wild Horse Nine, his fifth feature, he gives that obsession its most beautiful setting yet: Easter Island, where giant stone heads stare out at the Pacific and two ageing CIA agents are sent to wait out a problem they cannot fix. John Malkovich plays Chris, a veteran operative who is terminally ill, loose-tongued and quietly furious at the life he has spent in covert service. Sam Rockwell plays Lee, his younger colleague, crude, loyal and terrified of the day his own conscience catches up with him. Their bureau chief MJ, played with gloriously cutthroat glee by Steve Buscemi, dispatches them from Santiago to the island in the weeks before the 1973 Chilean coup, and what follows is a comedy about friendship, guilt and empire that is funnier and sadder than it has any right to be.

This review is spoiler-free on the film’s final stretch. The pleasures here are in the dialogue and the slow reveal of what these men have done, not in a twist, so nothing below gives away where the island assignment ends.

Quick Facts: Wild Horse Nine at a Glance

The Story: Exiled to the Edge of the World (Spoiler-Free)

The premise is pure McDonagh: a problem employee needs to be parked somewhere harmless. Chris has spent years in Chile as a CIA hand, and he has developed an inconvenient habit — telling the truth, loudly, in public, about what American intelligence is doing to Chilean democracy. He tells two left-wing university students, Monica (Mariana di Girolamo) and Alicia (Ailín Salas), exactly what the agency is up to, in the film’s most quoted spirit: that the United States is there to destabilise their democracy, and that it is going great. His boss MJ cannot have that kind of honesty wandering around Santiago on the eve of a coup, so Chris and his minder Lee are sent to Easter Island, one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth, to sit quietly until the unpleasantness is over.

The island refuses to cooperate with the plan. The Moai statues — the great stone heads — loom over every scene like a jury that has already made up its mind, and wild horses roam the volcanic landscape as a reminder of a freedom neither man has ever really known. Chris, who is dying, treats the exile as a last chance to say the things he has spent a career not saying. Lee, who still has a future to protect, treats it as a test of loyalty that he is increasingly certain he will fail. Their friendship, built on years of shared work and shared silence, becomes the film’s real subject: what do you owe a man who is telling the truth too late, and what do you owe yourself?

McDonagh shot on location on Easter Island — only the second film ever permitted to do so, after 1994’s Rapa-Nui — and cinematographer Ben Davis makes the most of it. The widescreen frames are arresting: volcanic rock, endless ocean, horses against the sky, and two small men in suits arguing about morality in the shadow of monuments built by a civilisation that collapsed long ago. The parallel is not subtle, and it does not need to be. Empires fall, the film keeps suggesting, and the men who served them are left standing in the ruins wondering what it was all for.

Performances: Malkovich at His Very Best

John Malkovich as Chris — This is Malkovich at his very best, and the Venice jury agreed, awarding him the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. His Chris is genial, impish, wicked and eloquent by turns, a man whose flappy hands and extravagant physicality disguise a terminal diagnosis and a lifetime of guilt. The great trick of the performance is that Chris is never simply heroic for speaking out: he is also vain, self-pitying and late. Malkovich lets you love him and judge him in the same scene, which is exactly the film’s moral position on its characters.

Sam Rockwell as Lee — Rockwell, who won his Oscar in a McDonagh film (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), is the perfect foil. His Lee is down to earth, crude and crusty, a man whose loyalty to Chris wars with his instinct for self-preservation. The chemistry between the two leads has been called a double act for the ages, and it is easy to see why: they finish each other’s sentences, wound each other with jokes, and fall silent at exactly the same moments. Time Out awarded the film five stars and called Malkovich a tour de force; SlashFilm called it perhaps McDonagh’s most emotional and incisive work to date.

Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and the ensemble — Buscemi is hilarious as MJ, the cutthroat bureau chief who treats human beings as scheduling problems, and Parker Posey is a delight in a small but pivotal role as Lee’s wayward wife Marge, seen mostly in phone calls that reveal how much of Lee’s life is already over. Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas bring spunk and spirit as the two students who refuse to be impressed by American power, and Tom Waits adds his usual weathered gravity in support.

Direction and Technical Craft

McDonagh directs with the confidence of a playwright who trusts his actors and his words. The film is wordy — gloriously, deliberately wordy — and viewers who found The Banshees of Inisherin too talky should be warned: this is a film of conversations, confessions and arguments conducted against extraordinary scenery. Carter Burwell’s score adds a mellow, pensive layer beneath the comedy, never pushing the emotion, and the production design recreates 1970s Chile with exact, unshowy detail.

The film’s one real weakness is one critics have noted fairly: the political backdrop, for all its urgency, sometimes feels underdeveloped next to the friendship at the centre. Empire gave the film four stars while noting that the Chilean context stays in the background, and there is truth in that. McDonagh is more interested in the two men than in the coup, and the history occasionally functions as weather rather than plot. The film is also, by design, a slow burn — the first act takes its time establishing the rhythms of island exile before the tension tightens. Patient viewers will be rewarded; viewers wanting a thriller should adjust their expectations.

Music and Sound

Burwell’s music is the film’s quiet conscience — gentle, reflective, slightly mournful — and it works beautifully against the harsh wind and surf of the island soundscape. The sound design lets the place breathe: horses, wind, ocean, and long silences in which two men decide whether to say the next true thing. Nothing here is built to be hummed afterwards, and that is a strength.

What Works and What Doesn’t

What we loved:

• John Malkovich’s magnificent, Volpi Cup-winning performance
• The Malkovich–Rockwell double act, one of the great screen pairings of recent years
• McDonagh’s funniest, most quotable dialogue since In Bruges
• Easter Island itself — astonishing location shooting in service of the theme
• A moral story about guilt and empire that never lectures

What could be better:

• The Chilean political backdrop sometimes stays in the background
• The slow first act may test viewers expecting a pacey thriller
• The film is wordy by design, which will not suit everyone
• Some will find the ending more elegiac than dramatic

Box Office: A Critical Darling Arriving at Just the Right Moment

Wild Horse Nine reaches UK and Irish cinemas on 4 November 2026 and US cinemas on 6 November, carrying a 93% Tomatometer score from around 120 reviews and a Metacritic score in the high seventies — the kind of critical consensus that turns a mid-budget film into an awards-season talking point. No verified opening gross was available at writing time, and this review reports none rather than guessing. What is clear is the film’s position: with Malkovich’s Venice win behind it and the year’s strongest reviews for a comedy-drama, it is the week’s prestige event.

Verdict: Should You Watch It?

Yes, unreservedly. Wild Horse Nine is McDonagh at his most humane — still maliciously funny, still allergic to easy answers, but with a tenderness for his two doomed, bickering, guilty men that sneaks up on you. Go for Malkovich, stay for the horses, the stone heads and the jokes you will be repeating for weeks.

Our rating: 8.5/10 — A glorious, guilt-ridden two-hander: Malkovich magnificent, Rockwell superb, and McDonagh’s funniest and most moving film since The Banshees of Inisherin.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Wild Horse Nine about?
It follows two CIA agents, Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell), exiled from Santiago to Easter Island in the weeks before the 1973 Chilean coup, after Chris starts telling uncomfortable truths in public.

Who directed Wild Horse Nine?
Martin McDonagh, the writer-director of In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin.

Who stars in Wild Horse Nine?
John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell lead, with Steve Buscemi as their bureau chief MJ, Parker Posey as Lee’s wife Marge, and Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas as two Chilean students.

When was Wild Horse Nine released?
It premiered at Venice in September 2026, opened in UK and Irish cinemas on 4 November 2026, and reaches US cinemas on 6 November 2026.

How long is Wild Horse Nine?
118 minutes.

Did Wild Horse Nine win anything at Venice?
Yes — John Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.

Is Wild Horse Nine based on a true story?
No, it is a fictional story set against the real historical backdrop of Chile in 1973, before the coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende.

Sources

• https://www.comicbasics.com/wild-horse-nine-earns-fresh-praise-on-rotten-tomatoes-and-critics-say-martin-mcdonaghs-cia-comedy-is-a-double-act-for-the-ages/
• https://missflicks.com/2026/11/03/wild-horse-nine-review-another-brilliant-male-friendship-from-mcdonagh/
• https://www.cinemaexpress.com/international/features/2026/Nov/04/cinema-without-borders-it-takes-two-to-tango-wild-horse-nine