Images courtesy of Apple Original Films
WOLFS– 4 STARS
As the two competing main characters with the same “profession” (more on that later) of Wolfs are forced to collaborate, little shared ticks and tendencies of, dare I say, senior age arrive and blend. In one scene midway through the film, both of our men pull out similarly styled reading glasses from inside of their black leather jacket pockets to read the small text on a pager. Next, they’re wordlessly reading the other’s mind to pass a bottle of Advil from a glove compartment knowing they both want it and need it. Soon after, it’s a synchronized yawn between two guys having a long night.
LESSON #1: WHEN AGE AWARENESS IS NOT AN ISSUE– Unlike most Tinseltown urges to chase impossible fountains of youth, age awareness is not an issue between the 63-year-old George Clooney and the soon-to-be-61-year-old Brad Pitt in Wolfs. They are more than comfortable in their skin. Moreover, those two are cut from the same silk cloth of gilded movie stardom, and we’ve known that about them since before they teamed up on Ocean’s Eleven 23 years ago. Some say they don’t make this type of cloth anymore, but it’s out there. It’s just handsomely venerable in its thread count, and Wolfs is more than happy to show that smooth material.
A crash and a scream opens Wolfs as a fatal accident appears to occur at a swanky New York City hotel penthouse. Lying on the floor is a young man (Euphoria’s Austin Abrams) in his tighty-whites after crashing through a glass beverage cart next to the bed. Pacing frantically and looking for a discreet way out is Margaret (Amy Ryan of Birdman), a district attorney and mayoral candidate in the public eye. She has friends in high places because she makes a call to an emergency contact given to her and labeled only by a pair of brackets.
LESSON #2: THE ROLE OF A FIXER– When the man on the other end of the phone (Clooney) gives Margaret instructions and quickly arrives with a barrage of clarifying questions, Trolls series composer Theodore Shapiro’s score switches to serious tone and Everything Everywhere All at Once cinematographer Larkin Seiple’s static camera starts to zoom towards the resolute words and actions of this no-nonsense individual. He is a fixer– a cleaner– with tools and tricks of the underworld trade to cross the Ts and dot the Is where this accident becomes untraceable. He answers Margaret’s aghast statement of “I didn’t know people like you existed,” with a curt and confident “No one else can do what I do.”
Well, that’s where the wry comedy of Wolfs begins to bleed alongside the body needing disposal. Little does this man know, the hotel’s owner (a voice cameo from quadruple Oscar winner Frances McDormand) has a camera on the penthouse and has brought in her own cleaner (Pitt) to protect the hotel’s interests. Like an anti-"Meet Cute" in a romantic comedy, the two professionals stare each other down in disdain only to be forced to collaborate on this pressing matter by their unseen handlers.
LESSON #3: ONEUPSMANSHIP AMONG PROFESSIONALS– Part of the rub is that both prideful men matching the alpha predators of the movie’s pluralized title were both haughtily unaware of the other’s existence on specialized turf they thought was completely their own. Within this embarrassing pickle, Wolfs creates an ultra-competitve setting between two egos that have long been inflated by thoughts they were the best and only ones to do what they do. Rather than fist-bump and compare techniques like a couple of workplace compadres, they keep their perceived exclusivity and trade secrets tight to their proverbial vests.
Things are going ball-bustingly great until a backpack filled with uncut blocks of heroin is discovered, raising the danger and complications for our two stars in Wolfs. No one is going to miss one dumb kid, but someone most certainly is going to miss millions of dollars of drugs. The dexterous and sharp screenplay from Spider-Man trilogy director Jon Watts inspired by the tales of real-life Hollywood fixer Paul Barresi tangles even more tangents from there in highly entertaining “one wild night” fashion. To say more would spoil the swerves.
LESSON #4: ADMITTING EXPERTISE EQUALS ACKNOWLEDGING COOLNESS– The unmistakable and multiplex-worthy draw of Wolfs is revisiting the electric chummy dynamic between Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Though they play nearly mirror image heart-of-gold criminals with the same monastic rules and those aforementioned quirks of advanced middle age, they portray different speeds of sarcasm and red shades to their perturbed asses. The fun of the dick-measuring gamesmanship is when those cadences and bluster start to gel. Scowls turn into hat-tips where acts of one or the other admitting expertise equal acknowledgements of coolness.
The spirit of Lesson #4 matches this radiant union of lead actors. Reunited for the first time since 2008’s Coen Brothers romp Burn After Reading, George and Brad are the perfect men to play these bristled rogues and turn them into winning studs to root for and follow. Between the two of them, it starts with their matinee idol mugs radiating body language. Both Supporting Actor Academy Award winners can act with their eyes better than most of their peers and contemporaries can with their entire bodies and voices. So often, a furrowed forehead flex from Clooney meets a nonplused raised eyebrow of Pitt, and we cannot help but smirk at the sight. By the time their banter increases and finishes each other’s sentences, we’re hooked by the beguiling bait.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1229)
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