Make no mistake, “Wolfs” is not going to make anyone’s “Best of” list for 2024 but that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun, because it is. A starring vehicle for two of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Brad Pitt and George Clooney, the script is a tad too light to sustain that kind of star power, but rest assured, they make the best of this Jon Watts film. Any prerelease criticism was aimed at the salaries of the two actors and not at the film itself.
A VIP, Amy Ryan in a very small but pivotal role, has gotten herself in a massive amount of trouble in the penthouse suite of New York’s most luxurious new hotel. It’s career-ending trouble and she doesn’t know where to turn. At one point, she was given the number of a mysterious person who could eliminate world-shattering problems on a one-time basis. She wasn’t sure what that meant until this very moment with a dead kid lying on the floor of her suite. She calls; he comes. More than a proverbial “cleaner,” he assesses the situation and begins to plot her escape from the situation. We’ll call him George because that’s easier than Mystery Man Number One. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door; a pause; the door opens. Enter Mystery Man Number Two (who we’ll call Brad, for the same reasons). He has been sent on exactly the same mission, but by the owner of the hotel who has seen everything on a camera hidden in the room.
And so it begins. George is enormously annoyed; Brad is smugly more amused than annoyed by the obvious overlap. Both are professionals and bicker over supremacy and techniques, methods that each guards carefully. They dispatch the VIP and begin their work.
Not exactly working together, the cat and mouse game continues as they try to rid the room of all traces of the “accident,” loading the body imaginatively on a luggage cart and plotting their next moves. Complicating everything is the hidden backpack they find loaded with bricks of pure heroin.
What follows is a series of coincidences, chases, failed gambits and awareness; awareness that the situation is more complicated than they thought combined with what they thought of as the originality of their positions that may not be so unique after all.
At a rapid fire pace, George and Brad and the erstwhile “corpse” are put into untenable situations that test their mettle and force them to work together, as horrible as that seems to them. Something is going on beyond this job but they’re having a hard time fitting the clues together and pulling back the blackout curtain. The more they succeed, the more they fall back into quicksand of someone else’s making.
Giving away any of the actions that follow the “routine” business of cleaning a crime scene so that it no longer looks like a crime scene would be unfair to you and to the film. Just know that the movie, traveling at the speed of sound, demands that you suspend belief and get on board this runaway train. The chemistry and interplay between George and Brad is thoroughly enjoyable and one of the reasons, well maybe the only reason, to see this thriller. But make no mistake, it’s still a very good reason. If “Wolfs” were a souffle it would have cratered with such heavy duty actors and the expectations that would have accompanied them. But it’s not a souffle; it’s a mystery/thriller chase flick with lots of moving parts that keeps the pace going a hundred miles an hour so that you don’t notice that the substance is lacking. It doesn’t matter. “Wolfs” is a good time even when the gambits go beyond any semblance of reality or it sinks into exposition when the visuals are not enough to explain some of the actions.
Watts’ film isn’t high art and has more holes than swiss cheese but the dialogue is crisp and the two stars keep it afloat until the end when it no longer matters. So my advice is, sit back, relax, enjoy the chemistry and highly unlikely plot developments. It’s not a bad way to spend a couple of hours whether at the theater or on Apple TV+.
Opening September 20 at the Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown LA and Cinemark Playa Vista, among others. Streaming on Apple TV+ on September 27.
