‘Wolfs’ Review: Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s Double Date
There is a moment in Wolfs where I was fairly sure that George Clooney and Brad Pitt, consummate professionals who have both won Oscars, would break character. It comes early: when their on-screen personas meet for first time, in a darkened hotel suite, to sort out a bloody mess. As Pitt (looking handsome) spots Clooney (ditto, obviously), who has been hiding in the next room, the film almost switches genre from crime caper to documentary. Does that speak to the transcendent power of two industry titans reuniting on-screen again? Or could it be that these characters – whose names I can neither remember, nor be sure that I was ever actually told – are so thinly-drawn that they are prone to fall to pieces? Quite obviously, like many things in this buddy comedy about duelling identities, the answer is both things.
It’s late in an ice-cold New York and a woman (played by Amy Ryan, and again I could not tell you her name) is in a predicament. A man, who she says is definitely not a prostitute, has died in her hotel room. Awful! I hate when that happens. She calls Clooney, whose number she has previously been given by someone she trusts. He turns up, reassuring and respectable, and tells her to go home. He will sort it. But then there’s a knock at the door, and Pitt turns up. He has been sent by the hotel, who do not want the mess on their hands. Who are these men? They are fixers: the people you call to clean up the kind of mess that is not in housekeeping’s remit.
The plot thickens, just a little. Clooney and Pitt find drugs in the hotel room. And the man who was presumed dead (Austin Abrams, in a fun role) is not dead and actually quite keen to run away from these men. Soon gangs are involved and car chases and guns. And, would you look at that, Clooney and Pitt, who prefer doing things solo, might just have to work together to sort this mess out. They bicker over the best way to do that, and wear matching black leather jackets. And they often growl.
So: no surprises, but some charm. Watts has style, and the film never looks anything less than professional. The pace is intriguing. That hotel set-up goes on way longer than you would expect, and that’s the right call: the back-and-forths set up an idiosyncratic tone, and even if the film does not really follow through on that, it’s nice to have it at the start. The climax, when it arrives after some not-entirely-earned plot points, is weirdly compelling. The locations are nicely shot and evocatively wintry.
But it all comes down to Clooney and Pitt. They have worked together before: in the deeply watchable Ocean’s Eleven trilogy (shout out to Ocean’s Twelve, which is the best out of those three) and briefly in Burn After Reading. But the actors are arguably more famous for their work together off-screen: as exceedingly good-looking friends and corporeal reminders of a time when actors sold movies on their names alone. In Wolfs (smart title!), Watts does his best to squeeze the most out of their chemistry. There are alright quips and some funny sparring throughout. Much of your enjoyment of this film will hinge on how much that partnership can make up for the movie’s blank spaces.
While attempting to find out these character’s names for you – just attempting to fulfil my journalistic duty – I discovered something altogether more memorable. Apple Original Films, which distributed this movie and gave it a one-week theatrical release, has made a deal with Watts to write and produce a sequel for Clooney and Pitt. My feelings bypassed surprise (little in the current entertainment landscape shocks me) and disappointment (can nothing exist on its own?) to reach mild hope: maybe next time around, Watts can level this enviable opportunity into something a little more memorable. Names might be a good place to start.
‘Wolfs’ is available to watch on Apple TV+ from 27 September
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