★★★½ (3½ out of 4)
Attention Oscar: John Malkovich is career-best brilliant in “Wild Horse Nine,” so act accordingly. It’s one of the year’s best films. Malkovich is the sparking livewire in the latest spiked salvo from Martin McDonagh, the writer and director who sets up Malkovich opposite fireball Sam Rockwell as CIA operatives assigned to destabilize the Salvador Allende democracy in Chile. It’s 1973, just before Yankee Doodle will oust Allende and usher in the brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Hypocrisy in action is mother’s milk to McDonagh in his plays (the “Leanne” trilogy) and in such films as “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “The Banshees of Inishirin.” Born in England to Irish parents, the playwright turned filmmaker is a real instigator. His humor doesn’t soothe; it stings like hell. Who’d want it any other way?