{"id":4263,"date":"2024-10-01T18:21:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T18:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4263"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:32:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:32:00","slug":"wolfs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/01\/wolfs\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolfs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wolfs<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Apple TV+\/Comedy-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language throughout, some violent content, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jon Watts\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jon Watts\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Theodore Shapiro\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Larkin Seiple\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 20, 2024 (US, limited)\/September 27, 2024 (US, Apple TV+)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan, Zlato Buric, Richard Kind, Frances McDormand (voice).<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Why, you may ask, did the new George Clooney-Brad Pitt movie Wolfs<\/strong> premiere on a streaming service? That\u2019s a good question. It was originally set to be released to cinemas by Columbia in an agreement with Apple Studios. That is, until a month ago when Apple backed out of the deal and decided to give it a limited theatrical release on its scheduled opening date (Sept. 20) before debuting it on Apple TV+ a week later. Like Kenan Thompson asks on SNL, what\u2019s up with that?<\/p>\n

\u00a0You would think a film with the combined star power of Clooney and Pitt would clean up at the box office. Think again. That\u2019s no guarantee these days. Just ask Apple Studios. The studio has seen its share of failures. Not a single one of their films, among them Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, Argylle and Fly Me to the Moon, turned a profit. It\u2019s likely Apple executives sensed the same fate for Wolfs<\/strong>. It\u2019s not exactly what you\u2019d call a crowd pleaser. There\u2019s not a lot of action or even much of a plot. It\u2019s mainly about the two stars exchanging witty banter as they work their way through a dicey situation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The star\u2019s characters go unnamed throughout the entirety of Wolfs<\/strong> so for the purposes of this review, I\u2019m going to refer to them as Fixer #1 (Clooney) and Fixer #2 (Pitt). Here\u2019s the situation. A woman (Ryan, Gone Baby Gone), who we later learn is the Manhattan DA, needs a mess cleaned up. She\u2019s in an upscale hotel room with the (seemingly) dead body of a much younger man. His death was accidental, but she can\u2019t afford the scandal. She calls an unidentified number on her phone and gets a message informing her it\u2019s no longer in service. Moments later, she gets a call from a man asking who gave her his number. After some back and forth, he tells her to do absolutely nothing until he arrives.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The guy is Fixer #1. He\u2019s a \u201ccleaner\u201d. He gives her specific instructions on how she\u2019s to proceed. They\u2019re interrupted by the arrival of rival cleaner Fixer #2. He\u2019s been called in by the hotel owner who saw the whole thing go down via a hidden camera in the room. She too wants to avoid a scandal. There\u2019s some debate over who\u2019s going to handle the job until the hotel owner Pam (represented by the voice of Frances McDormand) tells the guys it\u2019s in both their interests to work together. They don\u2019t want to, but they have no choice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The situation becomes more complicated than it initially seems. What they\u2019re trying to dispose of is a bit livelier than the average corpse. In other words, he\u2019s not dead. That\u2019s not all. \u201cThe Kid\u201d (Abrams, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) has a large quantity of drugs on him. Pam orders them to return the drugs to the rightful owner, an Albanian mob boss (Buric, Triangle of Sadness).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although there is some action, that\u2019s not what Wolfs<\/strong> is about. It\u2019s merely a set-up for Clooney and Pitt to show off the same great chemistry they displayed in the Ocean\u2019s movies. They\u2019ve still got it. Their relationship in the film follows a familiar trajectory. Dislike turns into tolerance which turns into cooperation as they navigate a tricky, potentially dangerous situation. The two actors have an easy, natural rapport with each other. They understand each other\u2019s unique rhythms. It allows them to play well off one another. At times, it sounds like they\u2019re improvising, a creative choice that works in the movie\u2019s favor. It\u2019s a pleasure just listening to them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Clooney and Pitt are helped greatly by writer-director Jon Watts\u2019 (the MCU Spider-Man films) well-written screenplay. It\u2019s witty and smart. In addition, Wolfs<\/strong> has a sleek, stylish look that enhances the tone very well. It takes place almost entirely at night. The fixers spend a lot of time in #1\u2019s car driving through nice sections of New York. Even Chinatown looks good. The credit goes mainly to Watts\u2019 cinematographer Larkin Seiple (Everything Everywhere All at Once) who knows how to perfectly film the two stars against the backdrop of nighttime NYC.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For those who insist on labels, let\u2019s call Wolfs<\/strong> a comedic crime thriller. It has a few funny moments amidst its noirish trappings. The scene where the fixers crash a wedding and get dragged into a traditional Albanian dance had me chuckling. A sequence where the fixers chase Kid after an attempted escape dance is both amusing and riveting. The crime thriller aspect of the film is similarly compelling even if it isn\u2019t fully developed. Like I said, there\u2019s not a lot of plot to Wolfs<\/strong>. Some viewers will find that off-putting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wolfs<\/strong> benefits from a gifted supporting cast that includes Richard Kind (Beau Is Afraid). He plays a Frank Sinatra superfan the fixers encounter in their travels. It\u2019s only one scene, but it\u2019s a great call-out to the original Ocean\u2019s 11 from 1960. That\u2019s what I like about Wolfs<\/strong>. It\u2019s not afraid to show its age much like the lead actors, both in their 60s now. They might not move as fast as they did in their 30s, but they haven\u2019t lost a step in their back-and-forth banter. It\u2019s fun watching these two professionals do what they do best.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I think I now understand why Apple didn\u2019t give Wolfs<\/strong> a big theatrical release. It probably wouldn\u2019t attract audiences once word got out it\u2019s not an action movie. Here\u2019s hoping it finds an audience on its streaming platform.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wolfs (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Apple TV+\/Comedy-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 108 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language throughout, some violent content, drug material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jon Watts\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jon Watts\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Theodore Shapiro\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Larkin Seiple\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 20, 2024 (US, limited)\/September 27, 2024 (US, Apple TV+)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan, Zlato Buric, Richard Kind, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Wolfs-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5695,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4263\/revisions\/5695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}