Wild Horse Nine

“Will there be a paradise for dinosaurs?” asks Chris, John Malkovich’s dying CIA agent. In Martin McDonagh’s bleakly comic world, set in 1973, this may be the most revealing question. A lifelong killer, Chris has developed a soft spot for animals: he no longer kills the moths that fly in, while he seems visibly disarmed by the wild horses on Rapa Nui. “Sometimes I feel more concerned about the moths of Chile than the people of Chile,” he admits, exposing a moral compass out of whack. As his memory fades, animals become easier to understand or simply easier to feel something for. Briskly paced with vivid, nostalgic colours, the film puts this contradiction at its heart, pairing Chris with Lee (Sam Rockwell), his younger CIA partner and reluctant executioner. Rockwell is superb, letting irritation give way to loyalty and affection, while Malkovich delivers his most haunting performance to date, turning Chris’s arrogance and cynicism into something unexpectedly fragile. McDonagh’s familiar male duet takes a darker turn here: a meditation on political violence, complicity and the possibility of grace. If Chris can imagine a paradise for dinosaurs, perhaps the film’s most unsettling question is whether he can imagine one for himself. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)

Martin McDonagh: IN BRUGES (2008), SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2012), THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (2017), THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (2022)