Wild Horse Nine: reviews

What the critics say average 7.9 from 55 outlets

• 10 The TimesKevin Maher There are dashes of anti-fascist polemic sprinkled throughout, but the feeling that lingers longest, and which marks out the movie for greatness, is its cheery, sweary embrace of mortality and the inevitable end of us all. Read
• 10 The TelegraphRobbie Collin The film is downright wonderful, and Malkovich and Rockwell are irresistible in it. Read
• 10 Time OutPhil de Semlyen A bittersweet hangout film about lonely, crumpled men facing up to mortality, dealing with the consequences of violence and chewing the fat to outlandishly funny effect. Read
• 10 AwardsWatchRyan McQuade Wild Horse Nine is intelligent, superb filmmaking by all involved. Read
• 10 San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle For sure, this performance is the crowning glory of Malkovich’s career. Read
• 10 Little White LiesDavid Jenkins While Rockwell seems to do his best work with McDonagh, and this is no exception, flowers go to Malkovich, who delivers arguably his finest screen performance of the 21st century, demonstrating that it takes a master to make a morally despicable character such as Chris not just worth rooting for, but (almost) falling in love with. Read
• 10 Original-CinChris Knight It all hinges on the friendship between the two main characters, who bicker and argue and swear and threaten and also clearly love one another. There are several moments of tenderness, and one that even moved me to tears. Read
• 10 Chicago TribuneKatie Walsh Malkovich imparts this all with a deeply felt soulfulness and wit, and he is as funny as he is devastating. Read
• 9.1 The PlaylistRodrigo Perez McDonagh’s greatest instinct has always been his ability to regard deeply flawed characters with curiosity and compassion while refusing to let them off the hook. Here, that tension produces a bleak, laceratingly funny, and profoundly moving miniature tragedy about karma, friendship, and the stories people tell themselves to survive their own actions. Read
• 9.1 The Film StageLuke Hicks McDonagh does a terrific job both directing his talent toward the script and spotlighting it with a stylistically simple approach. Read
• 9.0 The Hollywood ReporterDavid Rooney McDonagh draws transcendant performances entirely plugged into the subtle tonal shifts in the material from Malkovich and Rockwell, both of whom bring emotional weight to the film’s insights into male friendship and loyalty. Read
• 9.0 The Film VerdictStephen Dalton Consistently great, occasionally sublime, it bounces along on big laughs and knockout performances, most notably from John Malkovich in a rare return to peak form. Read
• 9.0 ColliderAidan Kelley It’s another stellar entry in McDonagh’s repertoire, but above all else, it is an extremely enjoyable ride. Read
• 9.0 The Wall Street JournalKyle Smith If the melody of Mr. McDonagh’s script is black comedy, the harmony is its sense of mistakes made and things lost. Read
• 8.8 Roger EbertMatt Zoller Seitz The main draw, as in all his work, is the exploration of a central duo’s relationship, which becomes a vehicle for philosophical and theological explorations of darker emotions: regret over failure, guilt over sin, fear of death, and the unwillingness to face the ugliest truths about oneself. Read
• 8.8 New York PostJohnny Oleksinski Wild Horse is one of the director’s most plainly enjoyable movies, thanks in no small part to the brilliant Malkovich and refreshingly sunny setting. Read
• 8.8 The Travers TakePeter Travers John Malkovich guns for Oscar gold alongside Sam Rockwell in a political thriller from Martin McDonagh that goes for the jugular. You’ll laugh. It’ll hurt. Read
• 8.8 ReelViewsJames Berardinelli With its balance of comedy, tragedy, and tension, this is a strong entry from one of today's most reliable filmmakers. Read
• 8.0 NMELou Thomas Another bitingly funny, bracingly tough feature with top performances that’ll leave you with plenty to ponder once the end credits roll. Read
• 8.0 Radio TimesJames Mottram McDonagh is far from spinning his wheels, delivering a poignant, powerful film that skilfully blends the personal and the political. Read
• 8.0 Next Best PictureJosh Parham The analysis of grief and regret at the end of life, set against the backdrop of political turmoil, is a fascinating concept that’s captivating. The performances from the whole cast are great, with Malkovich delivering career-best work. Read
• 8.0 VultureBilge Ebiri Somehow Malkovich himself holds the film’s many contradictions in exquisite balance. He’s never been better. Read
• 8.0 Screen DailyNikki Baughan Alongside electric performances from John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, the film benefits from McDonagh’s expert blend of poignant drama, meaty dialogue and blistering dark comedy. Read
• 8.0 VarietyGuy Lodge Malkovich — in his first collaboration with the writer-director — gives McDonagh’s pithy, tangy dialogue just the sad, soulful eccentricity that it needs to live off the page. Where the film, enjoyable and puckish as ever, gets just a little too neat, the actor’s hoarsely wounded, seen-it-all performance untidies things a bit. Read
• 8.0 TimeStephanie Zacharek If the writing sometimes comes off as winking and belabored, the acting is not. Read
• 8.0 EmpireIan Freer Wild Horse Nine doesn’t stray too far from Martin McDonagh’s wheelhouse but it’s a glorious place to visit, uproariously funny and quietly moving. Malkovich and Rockwell make a double act for the ages. Read
• 8.0 The Globe and MailBarry Hertz Wild Horse Nine can’t help but feel a little too familiar. But as McDonagh might have one of his trademark Difficult Men utter themselves, if it ain’t bloke, don’t fix it. Read
• 8.0 The Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz Enjoyable doesn’t necessarily mean “great,” as the performances outshine the story, but “Wild Horse Nine” is at least a good movie, often a very good one. Read
• 8.0 The Irish TimesDonald Clarke Comedy with a shiver to it. Read
• 8.0 IGNMichael Calabro Wild Horse Nine is a great hang. The script is one of Martin McDonagh's best, complemented by Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich's beautifully nuanced performances. Read
• 8.0 SlateDana Stevens For all the talk of hidden rifles, bombs in briefcases, and plots to overthrow democracy, the story seems to be unfolding in a mythical landscape that makes it feel more like a moral allegory than a spy thriller. Read
• 8.0 Film ThreatBradley Gibson Arriving at the delicately balanced confluence of humor, violence, politics, history, geography, and the tense friendship between killers is tricky. McDonagh pulls it off in his signature style, making an ideal milieu for the artistry of three talented actors at the top of their game. Read
• 8.0 Rolling StoneDavid Fear In the right hands, there’s a hell of a lot that can be done with two men, some first-rate banter, and a historical flashpoint that eerily resonates with our current need for a reckoning about American adventures abroad. Read
• 8.0 EscribiendoCineSantiago Echeverría The film does not need to reinvent its director’s cinema in order to find a variation inside it. McDonagh is still interested in characters forced to live with the consequences of their decisions, but he adds a question that shifts the conflict: what happens to guilt when the man who has to carry it starts to forget? Read
• 7.5 The A.V. ClubMonica Castillo Like in McDonagh’s previous comedies about complicated relationships, Wild Horse Nine is more than just about the shenanigans that get these men into trouble, it’s about the lonely misfit souls who find camaraderie in the least likely of partners. Read
• 7.5 Associated PressLindsey Bahr Wild Horse Nine might not stray too far from the formula, but at least it’s McDonagh’s own formula. He’s quite good at replaying the hits. Read
• 7.5 The Boston GlobeOdie Henderson Wild Horse Nine doesn’t really build to a climactic thrill; it more or less moseys on to its final moments. There will be violence, and double crosses, and so on, but everything is done more nonchalantly than you might expect. The bittersweet coda is worth the trip. Read
• 7.5 LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen We soon learn of the emotional thread that bonds them beyond their spycraft, which allows McDonagh—while taking aim at U.S. foreign policy, both now and then—to plumb his usual questions involving sin, guilt, confession, and redemption. Read
• 7.5 USA TodayBrian Truitt The Oscar-winning writer/director explored bickering hitmen in “In Bruges” and fighting frenemies in “The Banshees of Inisherin.” The dark comedy “Wild Horse Nine” doesn’t reach the thematic heights of those outstanding flicks, yet the same kind of delicious magnetism exists with CIA BFFs played by John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Read
• 7.5 MicropsiaDiego Lerer McDonagh has a Tarantino-like gift for tangential dialogue, the kind that wanders off into absurd digressions and then picks those apparent detours back up when you least expect it. Much of the pleasure of the film lies in savouring that sharp, rough talk, so full of very funny observations. Read
• 7.0 IONCINEMA.comNicholas Bell As is McDonagh’s custom, there are a lot of laughs thanks to a tight script and superb comedic performances, but there’s a queasy discomfort curdling the poignant melancholy. Read
• 7.0 Screen RantGeorge Bate Glaring parallels to In Bruges aside, Wild Horse Nine delivers exactly what one would want from a Martin McDonagh film. He once again showcases an unmatched ability to carefully plant seeds for jokes that take their time to blossom into uproarious laughs. Read
• 7.0 The Daily BeastNick Schager Paired opposite a stellar Sam Rockwell, Malkovich delivers one of the great performances of his career, no matter that the film itself isn’t nearly as confident in melding its own disparate registers. Read
• 7.0 Los Angeles TimesAmy Nicholson Only classic screwball comedians have delivered dialogue as blithely as Malkovich does here, with zingers that float off unburdened by the heaviness of the real world. He’s marvelous in this. Read
• 7.0 The RevealScott Tobias The tug of genuine emotion from Malkovich and Rockwell is critical to Wild Horse Nine, which sometimes feels perilously close to reflecting the glib attitudes of CIA ratfuckers rather than reflecting on them. Read
• 7.0 Otros CinesDiego Batlle Just when it looks as if McDonagh’s ingenious, tragicomic, bittersweet web will hold that enjoyable but superficial and fleeting tone to the end, the director and his two remarkable leads reach moments of authentic, genuine emotional density. Read
• 7.0 CinemagaviaMiguel Aceña Yanes Anyone who knows the director’s filmography will find no surprise here. They will meet again the aesthetic and narrative echoes of his earlier work, along with witty, sarcasm-loaded dialogue that manages to eclipse the tragic background the story unfolds against. Read
• 6.7 IndiewireDavid Ehrlich The prickly but unconvincing Wild Horse Nine strains to translate the post-Guy Ritchie bark of In Bruges into the language of a classic American Western. Read
• 6.3 The Seattle TimesChase Hutchinson The film remains an engaging ride, but in the end, the battles McDonagh and the characters he creates are facing (or pointedly not facing) are often losing ones. You’re in for the fight, but the film keeps finding its back up against the sea. Read
• 6.0 The GuardianPeter Bradshaw Not a McDonagh classic, but some nice riffing from Rockwell and Malkovich. Read
• 6.0 Caimán Cuadernos de CineÀngel Quintana McDonagh builds a film that asserts the defeat of hope in our present, and that leaves the viewer with nowhere to recover it from. Read
• 5.0 Slant MagazineMarshall Shaffer As the jokes bounce around the film’s hollow ideological cavern, they ultimately fail to resonate beyond being amusingly arranged words. Read
• 5.0 New York TimesManohla Dargis The real past presses down far too heavily here, which perhaps is why McDonagh leans on reliable people-pleasers like friendship, loyalty and redemption. It’s only when Malkovich flashes his malevolent smile, the smile which seduces and devours, that you see the movie that could, and should, have been. Read
• 4.2 The WrapWilliam Bibbiani Wild Horse Nine is neither endearing nor twisted enough to work. McDonagh doesn’t make these dangerous men lovable, he assumes they’re already lovable and works backwards. Read
• 3.0 The New YorkerJustin Chang McDonagh grants us a touristic view of Chile masquerading as a geopolitical one, and his dramatic aims are as obvious and limited as his emotional agenda. Read