‘Wild Horse Nine’ review: black comedy caustic bromance will clean up come awards season

Martin McDonagh has made a solid career out of brilliant bickering. The writer-director’s career kicked off with In Bruges, which featured Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as a pair of hitmen hiding out in Belgium. More recently The Banshees of Inisherin saw the same actors play pals who fall out hilariously, with some trademark violence weaved in among the laughs. Wild Horse Nine, which premiered at Venice Film Festival this week, offers more of the same with two blokes moaning at each other inbetween gallows humour and outrageous behaviour. READ MORE: ‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’ review: hilarious hillside comedy-drama for fans of ‘In Bruges’ It’s 1973 in Santiago, Chile, just before the military coup swept Augusto Pinochet to power. Two CIA officers, Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell) have earned a break having evidently facilitated the changing of the guard, so they fly to nearby Easter Island for an unspecified mix of business and pleasure. They’re both experienced killers, men who’ve not only seen it all but likely shot bullets into it, too. Chris has helped unsettle and overthrow several regimes in his time, and may even have had a hand in the assassination of Ame...