Hey, remember the scenes in Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” where George Clooney and Brad Pitt stood next to each other and looked cool and said cool things? The new film “Wolfs” assumes you do, and that you want to see those moments all over again, and again, and again, because that’s basically the whole movie.
And the thing is, “Wolfs” is right. We do want to see that. The ancient art of simply taking two people with chemistry and letting them do stuff, whatever that stuff is, is under-appreciated and a little lost. We go to see superhero movies for the superheroes, not the stars who play them, and you can tell because when those actors star in other movies those movies often struggle to find an audience. But Jon Watts’ film gambles on our simple desire to hang out with two cool fools who really know where their towels are. It’s content to let Clooney be Clooney and let Pitt be Pitt, and while the movie surrounding them doesn’t make a lasting impression, it sure is fun to watch while you’re in the thick of it.
“Wolfs,” which premiered on Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, stars George Clooney as a fixer. He’s the kind of guy rich people call to make a body disappear in the middle of the night. He has no name but since George Clooney is at his George Clooney-ist, for the rest of this review we’ll call him “George Clooney.” Brad Pitt is also a nameless fixer and at his Brad Pitt-iest, so we’ll call him “Brad Pitt” for the same reasons.
George Clooney is summoned to a hotel room and discovers a district attorney, Margaret (Amy Ryan), panicking next to a dead body. So he gets to work, calming her nerves and covering her tracks, and then Brad Pitt shows up. Margaret called George Clooney but the owner of the hotel called Brad Pitt, so whether they like it or not — and they don’t — these two loners will have to work together to make this problem go away.
It’s a crime comedy so everything goes wrong quickly. They don’t just have to get rid of a corpse, they also have to figure out who owns the staggering amount of the narcotics this mystery man had in his backpack. And just when they’re trying to solve that little conundrum, in a series of scenes let’s call “Bickerfest 2024,” another wrench gets thrown into the works, but we’ll save that for a surprise, even though the trailers probably already ruined it. (I just checked. They did. Thanks trailers!)
Jon Watts does a fantastic job of letting this situation find its own silliness, opening with a matter-of-fact, all-business slickness that evokes welcome memories of “Michael Clayton,” before it gradually opens up into a droll buddy movie. Larkin Seiple, who photographed “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Jon Watts’ early, lean and mean indie thriller “Cop Car,” sustains the film’s early dramatic approach for the whole runtime. No matter what silliness takes place on camera, it looks like it’s taking place in a world with no tolerance for silliness..
The cinematography deserves its own paragraph. Damn this is a good-looking movie. Seiple doesn’t just paint with light, he lacquers with it. The whole film looks shiny and deep, with lights popping out of urban murk, gloss on city grime. Somewhere around the corner the protagonists of a Michael Mann movie are probably having a very different night, but in the corner we can see, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are being reduced to petty embarrassments.
One wacky situation after another takes place and George Clooney and Brad Pitt gradually form an begrudging bond. In their line of work they’re supposed to be loners, devoid of connection. Lone “wolfs,” if you will. So if you were staring at that title and questioning the grammatical accuracy, don’t worry, the film did it on purpose.
The problem with “Wolfs” is that there is no problem. Everything is so tight and efficient in its construction, and its two heroes are so capable — even when they’re convinced the other one is a hack — that the chaos never threatens to overwhelm them. This keeps comedy mild and the tension low. Writer/director Jon Watts, returning to original material after three “Spider-Man” movies in a row, seems liberated by the chance to stretch his legs. But the aloof quippiness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have followed him home from work.
So “Wolfs” is always whimsical but after the first few minutes, it’s no longer suspenseful or fascinating. The dangers are brushed aside with cutting remarks, and although the film eventually threatens to send George Clooney and Brad Pitt down a darker path that reminds us that, before the events of “Wolfs,” these were both morally compromised people, the cast and characters are trying so hard to be likable that it never feels like a serious likelihood. It would be very un-George Clooney and un-Brad Pitt of them.
But let’s not let little gripes get in the way of the bigger picture. “Wolfs” is a very enjoyable film, even if its joy stems from minor frivolity. It’s a movie about cool people looking and acting cool, for the enjoyment of the (probably uncool) people in the audience. They call it “star power” because it dazzles. Then again, the problem is that there’s no real problem, and that has two meanings. It’s all well and good to make a sleek and handsome cinematic star vehicle just to make everyone happy. But without any real edge or danger, that happiness doesn’t last very long. “Wolfs” shines bright, fades fast, and leaves a good-looking after-image on the screen.
Apple Original Films will release “Wolfs” in select theaters on Sept. 20 and on Apple TV+ on Sept. 27.
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