Martin McDonagh’s latest film, Wild Horse Nine, does not feature Dallas on screen, yet the city looms large over the narrative. The Academy Award-winning director, known for The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, has crafted a Cold War spy thriller that centers on guilt, conscience, and the complicated nature of friendship. In the story, the mere mention of the city name has the power to halt a conversation instantly, serving as a potent symbol of the past that refuses to be forgotten.
The film follows Chris, an aging CIA operative played by John Malkovich, and his longtime partner Lee, portrayed by Sam Rockwell. Set in Chile in 1973, the plot involves a high-stakes mission where the characters must confront their histories. Malkovich’s character lists his previous service locations with the ease of a golfer listing courses, but the word Dallas lands with a different weight than Guatemala or the Congo. When Lee asks Chris to discuss the year 1963 on camera, Chris quickly shuts down the topic, suggesting that less said about Dallas is better.
Malkovich describes his character as a man who wrestles with questions of conscience and guilt. Chris is depicted as an anomaly who can be childish and funny one moment, then quietly lethal the next. After decades of outrunning the truth, he seeks to wash his hands clean near the end of his career. This history includes a chilling exchange with Patrice Lumumba, the former Congolese leader. In that scene, Lumumba warns Chris that killing him would be killing democracy in Africa for the next 50 years, to which Chris replies by asking what they are trying to do. Malkovich calls the moment incredibly sad, prescient, and horrifying, while also noting its dark humor.
The connection to Dallas runs deep through literary and historical references. The film indirectly nods to Don DeLillo’s novel Libra, which reimagines the path of Lee Harvey Oswald to Dealey Plaza. Malkovich, who adapted and directed a stage version of Libra in the mid-1990s, utilized archival footage of a Dallas TV station’s coverage of the JFK assassination. He describes that footage as an incredibly sad document. However, he and Rockwell push back on the idea that Dallas holds a unique curse, noting that similar events could happen in Tulsa, Chicago, or Miami, as people often seize windows of opportunity.
The film explores moral complexity through sharp dialogue. Chris admits he sometimes cares more about the moths in Chile than the people of Chile, a line that serves as a jab at a specific kind of moral blindness. McDonagh insists that while his characters may say uncompassionate things, the script as a whole possesses compassion. Chris is searching for that compassion and questioning why he has not been more compassionate in the past. This internal search, combined with the bickering, honest, and hilarious friendship between Chris and Lee, gives the film its pulse.
The cast adds significant depth to the production, with Steve Buscemi playing MJ, a buttoned-up CIA bureau chief, and Parker Posey playing Margie, Lee’s unfiltered wife. Posey brings personal connections to Texas, noting that her great-grandfather ran for mayor in Amarillo as a wet candidate, a term meaning he drank and supported alcohol. She expresses a deep affection for the city’s television history, specifically citing the show Dallas as a landmark of television drama. She also notes her time in Austin, where she filmed Dazed and Confused and Waiting for Guffman, and describes Texas as bold and like a country.
Buscemi also has strong ties to the state, recalling filming the miniseries Lonesome Dove in Dallas. He remembers visiting Dealey Plaza and feeling the historical weight of the location. He champions the state’s creative output, counting directors Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez among his friends and noting that a lot of talent comes out of Texas. The film is currently in theaters and is described as a sharply written, darkly funny, and tender story. For Dallas audiences, it offers a reminder that the city’s history still echoes far beyond Elm Street.
