Dir. Martin McDonagh · 2026 · 118 min · in cinemas
It is 1973, a few weeks before the coup in Chile. Two CIA officers, the veteran Chris (John Malkovich) and his longtime partner Lee (Sam Rockwell), are sent by their bureau chief (Steve Buscemi) from Santiago to Easter Island. Chris is gravely ill. He also befriends two rebellious local students, and that friendship threatens to derail the trip. That is as far as this review goes.
It is McDonagh's fifth feature as writer-director, after In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards and The Banshees of Inisherin. It premiered in competition at Venice in September, with Carter Burwell composing and Ben Davis behind the camera.
Almost every review starts in the same place: Malkovich. Little White Lies calls his turn a high point of the century so far, and Monica Castillo at the AV Club describes an unpredictable force who shifts between harmless old relative and something more dangerous. Critics also single out the chemistry with Rockwell, which carries the film through its rougher stretches, and the quick, screwball dialogue McDonagh gives them to trade.
…arguably his finest screen performance of the 21st century.
David Jenkins, on Malkovich, Little White Lies
The place helps. Easter Island is a remarkable setting, and it was not an easy one to film on: McDonagh has said only one film had been shot there before, and the production reports that everything, down to the period cars, came by boat from Santiago, with a stated aim of leaving nothing behind. Reviewers also note the way the landscape is used, in the manner of the island in Banshees.
This is where critics divide. Several see a director replaying his greatest hits: DiscussingFilm calls it a safe bet and asks how many more times the formula can work, and City AM says it does not quite reach the highs of In Bruges or Banshees. Little White Lies finds the first half knockabout, with the melancholy and the historical weight arriving late.
The harder objection is about tone. In Sight and Sound, Jessica Kiang argues that McDonagh's irreverence sometimes trivialises real historical atrocities, that the women get little to do, and that the film's fondness for its compromised men blunts its critique. Others find Rockwell reduced to a foil for Malkovich, and some of the plot's silliness a step too far. Time Out, by contrast, gives it five stars and finds real depth under the jokes. Peter Bradshaw is listed at three stars and David Ehrlich at a B-, so the range of opinion is wide.
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It is a cinema release from Searchlight Pictures; listings give 6 November for the UK and US. Availability varies by country, so check your local cinema listings, and wait for a streaming date to be announced before assuming one.