WOLFS (2024)
Hired to cover up a high-profile crime, a fixer soon finds his night spiralling out of control when he's forced to work with an unexpected counterpart
When a high-flying Manhattan District Attorney, Margaret Kretzer (Amy Ryan), meets an anonymous young man in her room, it ends with him dead on the floor. Not wanting her career and name tarnished due to an accident with an escort, she desperately calls a number given to her by a friend…
A “fixer” called Jack (George Clooney) promptly arrives and tells Margaret he can cover up the situation and ensure nobody will ever know a thing. But then, Margaret receives a call from the hotel’s owner, Pamela Dowd-Henry (Frances McDormand), who witnessed the whole incident via a hidden camera. And in trying to minimise the bad publicity her footage might bring her business, Pamela has sent her own fixer, Nick (Brad Pitt), to get the same job done.
Clooney and Pitt instantly recapture their chemistry honed during the Ocean’s Eleven (2001-07) trilogy. The two fixers instantly dislike each other, both too similar to be likeable to the other. Nick arrives and repeats the same questions Jack just asked before proceeding to give Margaret the same advice. It’s then they realise they need to work together, to save time and help their bosses.
Nick and Jack are different sides of the same coin. Jack’s a little older, grumpy and grizzly, preferring skill over more energetic tasks. Nick’s spritely but perhaps lacks the cunning of the older fixer. Jack’s superiority complex soon irritates Nick, who soon realises he can take a step back and simply judge the lone wolf.
Wolfs, a little too late in its runtime, eventually finds its narrative thrust when the allegedly dead body wakes up and goes on the run. This unnamed teenager (Euphoria’s Austin Abrams) and his bag of heroin add an unexpected complication to Nick and Jack’s night. Who do the drugs belong to, and will they like how the anonymous man’s been testing the product?
The third act sees the two lone wolves whizzing through snowy New York, trying to track down this mysterious teen. Soon, European gangs are involved, and a smooth night for two fixers becomes filled with car chases and guns. But never has a chase across the city been so tedious.
The set-up is closer to a rom-com than a crime caper. Two rivals who secretly respect each other must overcome their jealousy and preconceived notions to track down the man and his drug stash. The pair’s icy relationship slowly unthaws as they travel through the chilly city. They bicker throughout, but it’s clear their mutual respect ultimately overtakes any gripes.
Written and directed by Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Wolfs does nothing special within the action comedy genre and relies heavily on the charm of its leading men. Jack and Nick, whose names aren’t ever mentioned, are thinly written archetypes brought to life by arguably the two most charming actors of their generation. But both characters feel interchangeable, and there isn’t enough contrast to make their conversations likeable. The writing often feels flat because both egotistical lone wolves are at the same levels of cunning.
The idea of centring an entire film on an archetype often sidelined in crime stories—Harvey Keitel’s Winston in Pulp Fiction (1994) or David Patrick Kelly’s Charlie in John Wick (2014) come to mind—feels like a fresh take on the genre. Sadly, Wolfs soon stops being about the men who clean up crime scenes and just becomes just another car chase movie. Clooney and Pitt deserve a much smarter film than the one Wolfs ends up being.
The world also never feels real and lacks heart. It’s too set in the moment, so the stakes feel low. Because no one has a backstory or any real character traits, audiences may struggle to care about anyone’s fate. Aside from the core trio, other characters are far and few between, making the world feel empty and flat. Amy’s Margaret isn’t seen again after the opening sequence, and criminal doctor June (Poorna Jagannathan) appears too briefly to give colour to the world of Wolfs. The film could have benefited from further world-building and more characters.
Described as a comedy, the laughs are few and far between. Any humour between the two men soon wears thin as jokes start to repeat themselves. There’s only so much bickering audiences will take between two men who claim to be opposites but are essentially the same person. The funnier elements are the physical gags, which are in the minority.
Wolfs wastes its premise and cast on a slow crime caper that refuses to take the genre anywhere new. The 108-minute runtime feels long due to the repetitive bickering between the two men and the familiar beats that any filmgoer who’s seen any crime movie will recognise. It simply takes too long to get to the action, wasting time on lingering shots of a wintry cityscape and Clooney driving around.
Despite George Clooney and Brad Pitt demonstrating their iconic charms as two crime scene fixers, Wolfs is a repetitive caper about a seemingly boring and underpopulated part of the criminal underworld.
UK • USA | 2024 | 108 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH
Cast & Crew
writer & director: Jon Watts.
starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan, Zlatko Burić, Richard Kind & Frances McDormand (voice).
