I am always game for a Brad Pitt and George Clooney reunion in nearly any fashion. The two longtime friends carry an immeasurable amount of chemistry on screen, the kind that can carry nearly any scene or film they are tasked with shouldering. Unfortunately, “Wolfs” squanders the only asset it has going for it, stifling the charisma of its leads for nothing but streaming schlock and an incoherent narrative.
When we talk about content, “Wolfs” is what we’re talking about. It’s nothing for no one, existing solely because people with money and Hollywood goodwill thought all we needed to make a film was two leads we like to seeing together and nothing more. The context in which the two are paired does matter, but not to Jon Watts (the Tom Holland “Spider-Man” films) and Apple TV+. At every turn, it goes out of its way to be as dull as it possibly can. Billed as an action comedy, it is nearly nonexistent on both action and comedy, even with Clooney and Pitt clearly enjoying each others’ company.
You’d be better off watching a Q&A evening with the two than trying to catch “Wolfs” as the reunion void you’re missing. Watts has always been the kind of director with a lot of a style of substance, but he seems completely void of both in this sad attempt at trying to create something simply because the streaming service needs star power names to get more subscriptions. This film exists solely to drum up curious subscribers who hope for the best and are severely let down and saddled with a subscription they didn’t want in the first place. It is everything wrong with the current state of cinema, made for no one but shareholders who see stock prices over everything and couldn’t care less about cinema or movies. Apple has fuck you money, and “Wolfs” is equivalent to a billionaire buying their second yacht; no one benefits from it, the cost is never worth it, and the only person that enjoys the product is the guy who bought it.
People were excited about “Wolfs” even before the plot of Jon Watts’ new film was revealed, for two indisputable reasons: George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Yes, Watts is a director with his own proven track record that ranges from “Cop Car” to “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” and the film has a certain crime thriller atmosphere with comedic tones that make it feel breezy and fun, but the real draw was always Pitt and Clooney, reuniting onscreen for the first time in quite a while to channel their friendship into another fictional bond.
Even when the story of “Wolfs” gets rolling and we start watching the movie stars at its core as fictional characters, it’s clear that Pitt and Clooney are still the long shadows cast over the rest of the production, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The plot is clever, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the crime movie aspects are sharp, but in the end, for better and for worse, this is a movie running on pure, uncut star power, and if you buy into that power, it’s a joy to watch.
Clooney arrives on the scene as a professional fixer, a guy who makes problems go away no matter what they are and no matter how hard the job might be. He pops up in a hotel penthouse to help a local politician (Amy Ryan) get out of a major pickle, but he’s surprised and frustrated to find that he’s not alone. A second fixer (Pitt) has been sent along by another interested party, and because both are now on the hook for what they’ve witnessed, they have to work together to survive what turns out to be a wild night of shifting allegiances, deals gone wrong, and brutal organized crime.
Of course, both men are “lone wolves” whose very existences depend on keeping themselves free agents, untethered from all allegiances other than a duty to finish the job. That means they can’t trust each other, and that means Pitt and Clooney get to have a fabulous time playing frenemies, professional rivals who might pull the rug out from under one another or might end up being lifelong pals. Nearly all of the dramatic tension at work in Watts’ script, which reads like a Shane Black crime comedy crossed with a Steven Soderbergh star vehicle, is poured into watching these two guys dance around each other, sometimes working together, sometimes standing at odds, always willing to prank, needle, and push each other in unexpected ways.
Pitt and Clooney are old hands at this, whether working together or apart, and they prove they’ve still got the juice to carry a movie like this. They’re simply fun to watch, whether they’re trying to trick each other into admitting something or just riding in a car together listening to tunes. There’s a solidity to the way they work, a sense that we’re always in good hands, that allows Watts to do two very meaningful things with his story: Scale it down and throw in twists.
“Wolfs,” despite being set against the grand backdrop of a city at Christmas time, is a film with few speaking roles, few action sequences, and a very stripped-down feel. It’s an intimate movie, and it works because Pitt and Clooney are magnetic enough that they really don’t need anyone else around them. It’s also a movie that can get surprisingly, unexpectedly brutal, hilarious, and violent, often in the course of the same scene, and we don’t mind the swerves because we always feel carried along by the weight of stardom.
Unfortunately, that sense that the stars are carrying the movie and adding loads of goodwill to what’s going on can also work against “Wolfs.” The film looks, at times, unexpectedly muddy, like we’re watching a film set in a city where all the lightbulbs were stolen, and it’s a bit hard to follow lovable stars if we can’t really see them. It’s also a film, for all its charm and wit, that sometimes feels rather light on character. By their nature, we can’t really know and understand who these guys really are, and while the film does a good job of projecting character through their choices, it waits a little too long to spring any sense of an emotional core on the audience. That can leave it feeling hollow, even when it’s fun.
That said, “Wolfs” still largely works, not just as a star vehicle for two of Hollywood’s biggest names, but as a fun crime thriller in its own right. It stumbles at times, but when the two leads are this good on their feet, it always has space to recover.
‘Wolfs’ premieres September 27 on Apple TV+.
