Wild Horse Nine (2026) Review: Malkovich and Rockwell — McDonagh's Funniest CIA Odd Couple Lands on Easter Island at 94%

Martin McDonagh's 1973 Easter Island spy comedy is a double act for the ages, with a plot that fizzles at the edges.

Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine opens in wide release today, November 6, and critics are treating it as the best thing he has made since The Banshees of Inisherin. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 94% from 163 reviews with a Certified Fresh badge, and Metacritic stands at 78 from 48 critics, "generally favorable," with 90% of those reviews positive. The R-rated film runs 1 hour 58 minutes, and Searchlight Pictures is releasing it in theaters only.

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The setup is pure McDonagh: it is 1973, shortly before the Chilean coup, and two longtime CIA partners, Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich) and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell), are dispatched from the American embassy in Santiago to Easter Island. The errand is not quite what it seems. Chris is aging and leaves himself voice notes to remember his own life, Lee has quietly become his minder, and their boss M.J. (Steve Buscemi) keeps up the pressure from the other end of the line. Chris also becomes attached to two rebellious Chilean students, whose lives are tied to the two men as the coup approaches.

What the critics are saying

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus is blunt: John Malkovich is at his cantankerous best in "an uproariously funny espionage comedy." The Scotsman's Steve Dinneen gave it four stars out of five and called Malkovich and Rockwell a joy to watch, filling the shoes Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell wore in The Banshees of Inisherin. The Chicago Tribune scored it 100 on Metacritic, writing that Malkovich imparts the film's feeling with "a deeply felt soulfulness and wit." But Why Tho gave it 8/10 and described it as an In Bruges-style odd-couple story that is sweeter than its predecessor.

It is not unanimous. The New Yorker was the harshest voice with a 30 on Metacritic, arguing the film offers a touristic view of Chile, and The Daily Beast said the film is not nearly as confident as its lead performance in blending its different registers, even while calling Malkovich's turn one of the great ones of his career. Even the admiring reviews carry the same caveat: it does not quite reach the heights of In Bruges or Banshees, and some of it plays like a retrospective of McDonagh's own habits, with jokes that reward familiarity with his earlier films.

Why it works

The recurring praise is for the double act. Malkovich plays Chris as a prickly, bitter man with a childlike curiosity, while Rockwell sits between straight man and loose cannon, melancholy and charismatic in the same scene. One review singles out a moment in which Lee pretends to throttle Chris and then tenderly caresses his face as the film's defining beat. The bleak, funny tone leans on mortality and the futility of Western imperialism, and the Easter Island statues give the picture a landscape that does a lot of its mood work. Tom Waits, who has worked with McDonagh before, appears as Chris's brother, and Parker Posey plays Marge.

Where it stumbles

The weak spots are mostly in the plotting. A long-buried mystery and Lee's family life read more like side notes than part of the main story, and some of Rockwell's story developments build little tension. The question hanging over several reviews is how many more times McDonagh can lean on the odd-couple formula, though the consensus is that here it still works because of the two leads.

Our take

FilmRated scores Wild Horse Nine 84 out of 100. It is a funny, sad and unexpectedly tender film built almost entirely on two performances, and the critical numbers back that up: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 78 on Metacritic and an IMDb rating of 8.1 from early voters. It is a better bet for fans of In Bruges than for anyone who wants a tightly plotted spy story. If you are choosing one film to see in a theater this weekend, this is the strongest-reviewed wide release on the calendar.

Where to watch

Wild Horse Nine is playing exclusively in theaters from November 6, and Searchlight has not announced a streaming date. The official trailer is attached to this page.