WOLFS (APPLE TV+) (2024) |
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SYNOPSIS: George Clooney and Brad Pitt reunite for the action comedy WOLFS. Clooney plays a professional fixer hired to cover up a high profile crime. But when a second fixer (Pitt) shows up and the two “lone wolves” are forced to work together, they find their night spiraling out of control in ways that neither one of them expected.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Wolfs reunites real-life BFFs, George Clooney and Brad Pitt since their Coen Brothers outing back in 2008. For sure, it’s cool to see them pairing up once again and working with a filmmaker liked Jon Watts who is known for successfully rebooting the Spider-Man franchise. But Wolfs generally seems more like an extended polished advert than a proper crime comedy.
Wolfs got on to a strong start, a Quentin Tarantino kind of prologue which setup the mood, a potential intriguing narrative with a bunch of dialogue. A powerful district attorney Margaret (Amy Ryan) calls in a fixer (Clooney) after her escort, a half naked young man (Austin Abrams) is presumingly dead after getting high on cocaine. Clooney’s fixer, let’s call him fixer A does any real clean-up, the posh hotel’s owner arranged for another fixer to cleanup the crime scene. And that’s where fixer B (Pitt) arrives to the surprise of all of them.
Both fixers are same same but different. Fixer A is meticulous while Fixer B is more chill though both suffers from a bad back. Despite their lone wolves nature, both fixers had to work together to clean up the mess which is of course the dead body and surprise, a bag full of cocaine. Apparently, the young man didn’t really die and he went on a really long sprint across Chinatown. Not really a spoiler since you probably saw the trailer. Anyway, our two dear fixers have to think of first returning the drugs and perhaps resolved their implication in the whole entire saga.
Eventually, the trio has to overcome their odds and work together and Watts for the most part probably has the most enjoyable time coming up with the constant back-and-forth dialogue between Clooney and Pitt’s characters. The bickering is fun but it gets a bit repetitive. Clooney and Pitt of course plays the mismatched buddies to a tee so it’s not entirely their fault. I blamed it on Watts’ scripting and the extreme relaxed pacing.
Things did turned a bit heated when some Croatian and Albanian mobs are mentioned and introduced. Just when you thought Wolfs is finally getting some serious action, the whole entire conspiracy miraculously resolved by itself without the need for the fixers to do much heavy lifting. Since audiences never have the chance to get to know more about our wisecracking duo or the criminal underworld, a sequel is planned for the fixers to return. A huge letdown consider Wolfs is just a mere appetiser.
The story which is set in one single night allows cinematographer Larkin Seiple to indulge his lens in the wintry city of New York. The two A-listers look perfect and their playful chemistry is the only thing that helps to keep Wolfs afloat. It’s simply a crime caper that deserved more. If you watched enough QT and Coen brothers, you won’t be impressed by Watts has assembled. Still, it’s a well-shot, breezy watch and it’s always nice to see the stars in a feature movie beside their usual coffee machine ads.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
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