Martin McDonagh’s 'Wild Horse Nine' hits Venice Film Festival with a dark CIA tale

VENICE: Martin McDonagh had written a few versions of his new film “Wild Horse Nine,” which receives its world premiere on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, before he homed in on the CIA and the 1973 military coup in Chile.

One was about a father and son, another was about two actors. But nothing was quite working until he started thinking about the historical event that had fascinated him since he was a teenager.

“I realized then that the story could be about one of the guys experiencing guilt and regret over all these things he’s done,” the British-Irish filmmaker said. “It took it away from being a simple comedy to something much deeper and sadder.”

“Wild Horse Nine,” which stars Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich as a pair of CIA agents on a trip to Easter Island shortly before the 1973 coup, is one of the most anticipated movies at the festival where it’s in competition for the Golden Lion. It will have a theatrical release later this year and, if McDonagh’s track record is any indication, might be an awards player.

McDonagh's previous two films, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” both bowed at Venice and went on to receive multiple Oscar nominations, including best picture. “Three Billboards” won two, for Rockwell and Frances McDormand.

When someone suggested that “Wild Horse Nine” might be Malkovich’s ticket to an Oscar win after two nominations, he said, “the nicest thing is that the film gets attention.”

“I’ve had a long career, and I’ve had really spectacular collaborators and collaborations,” Malkovich said. “So I never feel in competition with any of them because generally I love what they do.”

McDonagh had pursued Malkovich for previous films, but he’d always had prior commitments. The actor said he wanted to make sure he would be available for this one.

“It’s a film that, with great humor, addresses two very traumatic occurrences — the death of John F. Kennedy and Chilean coup — with grace and intelligence and a kind of fairness,” Malkovich said.

“Wild Horse Nine” is one of the few Hollywood films to have been made on Easter Island, where they had to transport cameras and period-specific cars. Parker Posey, who plays Rockwell’s wife, even flew in to do off-camera phone scenes.

“What a mystical place,” said Posey, who also appears on camera as well.

Another newcomer to McDonagh’s world was Steve Buscemi, who said he “practically stalked” McDonagh at the Venice Film Festival a few years ago to tell him, “you have to work with me right?”

McDonagh said that it’s one of the best film experiences he’s ever had.

At the heart of the film is the complicated relationship between Rockwell’s Lee and Malkovich’s Chris, who seems increasingly agitated, prickly and forgetful, bogged down by the weight of the historical events he’s covertly had a hand in.

McDonagh wanted to make a pointed film about the CIA and the “awful things they’ve done all around the world,” he said.

“We know what the KGB are like but we probably don’t question the CIA as much as we ought to,” McDonagh said. “I’m always questioning, even in the less political films, I like to question authority or what we’re told.”

The film was meant to be a historical piece about the 1973 Chilean coup, and yet McDonagh has been struck by the tentacles and connections to current events, like the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“They don’t seem to be making it covert anymore,” McDonagh said. “It just feels like things are getting stupider, and stupider and stupider.”

He added: “Watching it now it does seem to have sort of commentary on present day geopolitics. It’s going to be fascinating to see how an audience takes it.”