Who says the movie star era is dead? It’s easy to say that when a star-driven film that looks like a surefire hit, something like Fly Me to the Moon (with Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum) misses the mark with audiences. But when you see two old pros like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, looking finer than ever and boasting enough swagger to leap off the screen, it’s enough to make you think the Golden Age of Hollywood has returned. In Wolfs, Clooney and Pitt are better than ever, looser than ever, funnier than ever, and it’s a wonder why they’ve waited sixteen years to be reunited like this. They better not make us wait so long again.
The oddly-titled Wolfs is the first non-Marvel feature in years from writer/director Jon Watts (of the recent Spider-Man trilogy), and it’s enough to get you excited to see him away from superheroes for a while. Then again, Clooney and Pitt are kinda like celebrity superheroes in a way. They formed the heist movie equivalent of The Avengers with their trio of hit Ocean’s movies. And now they show superhuman levels of charisma and comedy chops as a pair of lone wolf fixers forced to team up on a particularly dicey job.
Clooney and Pitt’s characters don’t even have names. It’s already like the A-list buddies are playing versions of themselves. Clooney’s character, a man with a particular set of skills, gets called to a swanky New York hotel suite by district attorney and aspiring political candidate Margaret (Amy Ryan), who has found herself in quite a jam. Next to her bed is a young, half-naked man, seemingly dead. There’s blood and broken glass everywhere. She says the young man, who was definitely NOT a prostitute, was jumping around on the bed and just collapsed. Desperate, she dials a hidden number on her phone, a number given to her by a powerful friend. It doesn’t even go through, and yet a moment she gets a return call. Clooney’s character is a fixer, and he can fix this mess for Margaret. But he really wants to know how she got his number. People don’t just have his number. With smooth command, he tells her to sit tight, don’t do anything, don’t call anybody else, and he’ll be there shortly.
This should be a relatively simply clean-up job. And it would be, except shortly after Clooney arrives, Pitt shows up. He’s got the same blue surgical gloves as Clooney, and the same “Who is this f***in’ guy?” attitude. Turns out, Pitt was hired by the hotel owner (who we hear over the phone, voiced by Oscar winner Frances McDormand) who saw the whole thing on a hidden camera. As the new owner, she doesn’t want this kind of news getting out about the hotel. It’s Pitt’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen. Pitt and Clooney don’t do team-ups, but have to when things get unexpectedly complicated. It’s going to be a long night.
In typical buddy comedy-action movies the pairing is meant to be combustible. But Clooney and Pitt are too much like pairing a fine red wine and a nice juicy steak. Their characters are similarly motivated by ego, both believing nobody else can do what they do. Clooney is calm, confident, and a stickler for doing things by the book. Pitt is slightly more antagonistic, almost like an arrogant pupil who enjoys needling an older mentor. It’s a funny dynamic because both men are very much in their 60s and look like it (both characters have back issues they won’t admit to), but they act like teenage boys arguing over the same girl. They are constantly at odds, with one trying to, I don’t know, outfix (?) the other. When one does something impressive, like Clooney’s cool use of a luggage cart for hide the corpse, the other can’t admit to it. When Pitt is proven right about a pretty big whopper of an oversight, one that changes the entire movie, Clooney denies it before trying to distribute the blame.
Written and directed by Watts, Wolfs is clearly a film designed with its stars in mind. Whether they had the freedom to or not, Clooney and Pitt don’t feel like they’re following a screenplay. If you told me they ad-libbed the whole thing, just cracking jokes at the other’s expense around a loose plot framework, I’d believe it. Occasionally, the riffs are broken up by bits of action, a chase through the city streets here, a shootout there, but mainly the action comes from the rapid-fire, punchy dialogue.
Fitting nicely into the Clooney/Pitt Show is a wonderful supporting cast. Euphoria actor Austin Abrams nearly runs away with the film as “Kid”, whose shifting allegiance to the grizzled fixers is both hilarious and endearing. I don’t want to give away more about his role for those who have avoided spoilers, but the story is driven largely by his antics, getting the elder criminals into one predicament after another, dressed ridiculously throughout. Amy Ryan and Poorna Jagannathan, the latter as an underground doctor with no patience for Clooney and Pitt’s machismo, are the only women in the film and they do a lot with the limited time afforded them.
Wolfs is getting only a one-week theatrical release before moving to Apple TV+, and that is a shame because it deserves a longer run. Drawing easy comparison to some of the best crime action-comedies (I got 48Hrs vibes often) Wolfs is a great time worth seeing on the big screen if you can find it. While others struggle to recreate the old formulas that led to genre success, Clooney, Pitt, and Watts make it all look so damn easy.
Sony Pictures releases Wolfs in select theaters on September 20th before moving to Apple TV+ on September 27th.
