Start with the wry humor of In Bruges’ fractious hitmen, out of their natural element in a picturesque tourist destination, then stir in the melancholic island setting of The Banshees of Inisherin, a haunted place of solitude and self-reflection. That lands you in the territory of Martin McDonagh’s shape-shifting tragicomedy Wild Horse Nine. But the longing for peaceful deliverance and perhaps even atonement that ripples through the writer-director’s fifth feature makes it uniquely affecting, resonating in ways both personal and political.
Sam Rockwell’s skill with the spiky cadences of McDonagh’s witty, explosively sweary dialogue has already been proven in Seven Psychopaths and most notably Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which landed him an Oscar for his role as the doltish racist cop lacking the tools to turn his life around. (Rockwell also starred on Broadway in McDonagh’s invigoratingly nasty 2010 play, A Behanding in Spokane.) That means the actor’s nuanced, funny-sad performance here is no surprise.
Wild Horse Nine
The Bottom Line
Dark comedy that sneaks up and floors you with sadness.
