THE STORY – A professional fixer is hired to cover up a high-profile crime. But when a second fixer shows up and the two “lone wolves” are forced to work together, they find their night spiraling out of control in ways that neither of them expected.
THE CAST – Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan, Zlatko Burić & Richard Kind
THE TEAM – Jon Watts (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 108 Minutes
When there’s something strange in your hotel room, who are you gonna call? Two lone fixers who don’t work well together, obviously! Trading in superhero movies, Jon Watts reunites two of Hollywood’s biggest leading men, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, in his bad-night-turned-even-worse comedy, “Wolfs.” It’s been a few years since these two starred in a film together – their collaborations include Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” trilogy, the Coen Brother’s “Burn After Reading” and Clooney’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” – but they haven’t skipped a beat, delighting with their usual banter and effortless comedy style. The rest of the film around them doesn’t try much, but there’s no denying the fun that happens when Clooney and Pitt get to share the screen.
A fun night out for tough-on-crime district attorney Margaret (Amy Ryan) gets interrupted when her young male companion (Austin Abrams) drops dead in her hotel room. Not knowing what to do, she dials a mysterious number on her phone, connecting her to a “Guy” (Clooney). He’s exactly the guy you need in a situation like this: Clooney’s cool, calm, and collected voice dictates everything she needs to do until he cruises into the hotel to the tune of Sade’s “Smooth Operator.” The only problem is that a few minutes after he arrives, another “Guy” (Pitt) walks in, sent by the hotel owner to make sure news of the incident doesn’t get out. Neither one is willing to play nice with the other, and unfortunately for them, their night is only just getting started and comes loaded with many twists and turns.
Clooney, playing the “bad cop” who’s stuck in his ways, and Pitt, playing the more goofy and sarcastic one, are endlessly entertaining together. At first, they can’t stand each other – they’re talking over one another, telling each other what to do but not wanting to do it, and just being total jerks – and we can’t help but eat it up. Sometimes, they don’t have to say anything at all to convey their annoyance or disgust: Every eye roll or utterance under their breath lands so effortlessly.
But soon, a third joins their party, the supposed dead boy toy from the hotel room, and they get involved in a drug scheme. Unlike the setup at the start of the film, this one is lazy and poorly thought out. It somehow involves Armenians – and that’s kind of all you need to know. There’s also a Croatian boss (Zlatko Burić, so wasted in this film) who has worked with both of them and would kill them if he saw them together. It doesn’t make sense, but Watts hopes you won’t ask too many questions and will just be satisfied watching the mismatched trio do their thing.
Well, lucky for him, they are entertaining to watch. Abrams matches their dynamic and delivers great comedic work, like his incessant questions about their work and his inability to tell a concise story. There’s also some great meta-commentary about both actors getting older – their backs hurting and inability to read a pager without their glasses is so relatable – and their film careers. But otherwise, there’s not much to really ride home about. Not to mention, the always loveable Richard Kind is given less than a minute on screen, which is truly unforgivable, and for some reason, he’s a Frank Sinatra fanatic.
So what if there are silly and not thoroughly thought out plot points in “Wolfs?” Sometimes, all you need is star power and a lot of laughs to have a good time. That’s precisely what you get with this easy, breezy comedy. Clooney and Pitt are always an ideal comedic pairing, and they’ve got the goods to make this film ultra-entertaining even when it falls flat in other areas.
