4/5 starsWith Wild Horse Nine, the fifth film of his much-heralded career, Martin McDonagh returns to the joys of his first.The director’s 2008 debut, In Bruges, was a sublimely written tale of two hitmen arguing in the picture-postcard town of the title. Similarly, his latest introduces us to two CIA operatives bickering as they head to the remote Chilean territory of Easter Island in 1973.That is not to say Wild Horse Nine – screening in competition at the Venice International Film Festival – feels like a rehash of In Bruges; far from it. Here, McDonagh presents a jet-black comedy set at a time when the CIA was moving all the pieces on the geopolitical chessboard.WILD HORSE NINE | Official Trailer | Searchlight PicturesA married father of two, Lee (Sam Rockwell) is under instructions from his heroin-addicted boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) to keep an eye on Chris (John Malkovich), a veteran of that fateful day in Dallas a decade earlier when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.Now the ailing Chris is threatening to write an explosive memoir, much to MJ’s chagrin.