For a price, even stars as blindingly big as Brad Pitt and George Clooney will agree to appear in a film as forgettable as Wolfs. Out on Apple TV+, the crime-comedy pales in comparison even to the very similar The Instigators, which debuted on the same platform mere weeks ago. Neither movie is particularly special, even though they share four Ocean’s Eleven veterans between them. Only one of them, however, boasts real chemistry between its leads. And it isn’t Wolfs. Starring Pitt and Clooney as a modern-day Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — it is up to you to decide who plays who — the film marks the safe extraction of director Jon Watts from over half-a-decade at Marvel.
The joy that he probably felt at being allowed to shoot in actual, real-life locations can be felt in every frame. Wolfs is set across one single night in New York City, as two highly driven ‘fixers’ find themselves mysteriously assigned to the same job. When an ambitious district attorney, played by Amy Ryan in a glorified cameo, has a bit of a mishap with a young male escort in a fancy hotel suite, she calls for the services of a professional mess-cleaner played by Clooney. He saunters into the room, the silverfox that he is, and begins issuing instructions. He is calm, but not casual, firm but not frigid. He is George Clooney.
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Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Wolfs.
A couple of minutes later, however, there is another knock on the door, and enters Pitt. As it turns out, the hotel has an in-house fixer of its own, and because the mysterious owner didn’t want her flagship property associated with this mess, she sent him to the suite post-haste. The trouble is that neither of them is a team player, but they are given no choice but to join hands. Well, they could just say no, in all honesty. One of them could very have very easily thrown his hands in the air and refused to work with the other. But we wouldn’t have had a movie then, would we? Matters are further complicated when Pitt’s character discovers a stash of heroin behind a couch, which suddenly raises the stakes.
In a different world, a movie with these two, a bag of unclaimed drugs, and a Frances McDormand cameo would’ve been directed by the Coen brothers. But in this world — the real world, our world — it has been helmed by the man whose biggest contribution to cinema remains bringing three Spider-Men together in one frame. Also written by Watts, Wolfs exposes his complete inability to craft a single scene worthy of Pitt and Clooney’s talents. There is only so much that stars of their calibre can do to elevate mediocre material, but not only do they seem oddly disinterested in the thing — they were reportedly paid $35 million each — there is a distinct lack of energy to their performances.
Here are two guys who’ve been known to light up the screen without moving so much as a muscle. In Wolfs, they’re made to banter and brawl; there are car chases, gun fights, and even a dance-off. But no matter what situation they’re thrown in, Pitt and Clooney cannot seem to shake off the feeling that they would rather be at home. How ironic is it that it took a man named Watts to rob them of their star power?
To his credit, the movie certainly looks like a million bucks (although it probably cost 200 times that). There is a glossiness to the production that the cynical viewer could ascribe to an Apple mandate. But as open-hearted audiences, let us attribute it to the proven skills of cinematographer Larkin Seiple, shall we? Wolfs is able to present New York in a wholly new light, which is a remarkable achievement, considering how widely photographed the city has been over the decades. An ambitious action sequence — it is this film’s equivalent of an interval block — takes our two protagonists across town, on streets, sidewalks, and even scaffolding.
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Brad Pitt and George Clooney in a still from Wolfs.
To take even a feeble stab at explaining the plot of Wolfs would be foolish. But in the interest of due diligence, let’s try. Two guys who can’t seem to stand each other — for no reason, by the way — are made to team up. They discover drugs. They’re instructed to deliver the said drugs back to their rightful owner. A dead person comes back to life. They chase him across the city. Poorna Jagannathan shows up. One of them pretends to be more agile than the other. Stuff gets done, but their hijinks attract a horde of Albanian gangsters. The boss of those gangsters has some sort of connection to them, but you can’t be bothered to figure out what. The movie doesn’t even have a proper antagonist, for crying out loud. Such was Watts’ confidence that he could coast by on Pitt and Clooney’s charm alone.
Perhaps with someone like Shane Black at the helm — Wolfs is, after all a buddy movie set during Christmastime; a Black staple — the film would’ve had the fleet-footed whimsy that it is so desperately aiming for. There is sneaking suspicion that if Pitt and Clooney had been left undirected — say, a camera had been set up to capture their casual conversations — the movie would’ve been a far more engaging experience. It would’ve certainly been wittier. If anything, Wolfs proves that even two people with proven chemistry can struggle to reignite it in the wrong circumstances.
Wolfs
Director – Jon Watts
Cast – Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Austin Abrams, Amy Ryan
Rating – 2/5
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