PREMISE
Two rival fixers cross paths when they’re both called to help cover up a prominent New York official’s misstep. Over one explosive night, they must set aside their petty grievances and egos to finish the job.
THE GOOD STUFF
CLOONEY & PITT – You know what it is about these two that’s so entertaining? George Clooney and Brad Pitt have mastered the art of silent dialogue more than any other on-screen duo in film history. More so than they ever did during the oceans trilogy, and throughout this film, there is a significant number of silent facial expressions, shrugs, guffaws, and headshakes towards one another that kind of drives the comedy aspect of this film even more so than the dialogue that is being spoken. They are self-aware that this is the kind of movie that movie stars get to have fun with, and they have their fun. But also, they do give gravitas in the moments that are needed.
This movie flat out doesn’t work if it is anyone but these two specific actors doing this film.
PACING – WOLFS is a movie that takes place during one evening. There are plenty of movies throughout film history that have a similar kind of time frame to tell their story. The bad ones either have too much plot to fit into this time and rush everything at a hundred miles an hour, or they tell a story that needs more than one day to explain everything in detail. The good ones do what this film does: spread everything out in an even way.
This is a movie with a good number of notable plot developments and still has time for humor and action without being too complicated.
AUSTIN ABRAMS – It has to be a hell of a daunting thing to find out that damn near every scene you do in this movie is going to be having you match wits with two of the coolest movie stars to have ever lived. However, Abrams is game and adds more to this movie once his character gets going. He perfectly contrasts everything Clooney and Pitt are doing and probably has the best scene in the film.
THE BAD STUFF
AN….ACTION COMEDY?-
I have no clue as to why this is being advertised as an action comedy. It most certainly isn’t that. If anything, this is 100% a comedic film noir. Just looking up what film noir is defined by, this film checks off everything outside of it, being the drama.
VILLAINS- Perhaps it would have been stuffing too much into a very short running time, but this movie badly needed a villain. Not even one that you had to cover with a lot of screen time, but a definitive final boss to give our two movie stars somebody to face off with either physically or in some DeNiro Pacino-esque dialogue showdown.
THE UGLY STUFF
APPLE TV shenanigans —Why in the absolute f*** is this not a theatrical release in September? There are so many dog s*** September releases throughout the time that should have been punt-kicked into VOD instantaneously, only for something of quality like this to get a limited one-week theatrical run. I can really go into a lengthy rant about this, but it isn’t anything that I haven’t said before.
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Movies like this are a product of a bygone era. This is the kind of movie that movie stars would do back in my day. And for that, I am happy that this movie exists in the way that it does. I’m almost certain that the effect that it will have on a streaming service will not equal how it looks on a big screen.
This does very much seem like a movie that is a cash grab for the director and stars by design. But it says a lot about the stars and the director involved that we know that that’s the case here, and still they managed to perhaps accidentally put out a quality film.
WOLFS is in theaters now
