‘You get old, you start to question shit, regret shit.’ That’s where a bitter, been-there-done-that John Malkovich is at in Martin McDonagh’s latest film, Wild Horse Nine. It’s a line that demonstrates McDonagh’s unique ability to blend profane black humour with profound melancholy, and it sets the scene for the familiarly bittersweet cocktail to come.
Malkovich is on top form as Chris, a weary, seventy-something CIA operative stationed in Chile in 1973 with his younger, burger-munching buddy and colleague, Lee, played by Sam Rockwell. Chris has been involved in many high-profile, covert operations over the years (Guatemala, Congo, Dallas were ‘successful’ he says, The Bay of Pigs ‘less successful’). No one can know that, of course – the people he’s killed and the outcomes he has influenced are things that he himself must contend with. Now, reaching the end of his life and stricken with a terminal illness, he’s doing just that.
