George Clooney and Brad Pitt are two fixers who unknowingly end up being forced to work together in writer-director Jon Watts' action-comedy "Wolfs". What should have been a simple clean-up job ends up becoming much more upon a revelation or two. Will they be able to survive the night and each other through their complicated predicament? Or will circumstances continue to work against them?
Clooney and Pitt have been a well established team-up for many years now, going back to when "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) was released. We know that they're going to work great off each other in most of the films they collaborate on. What begs to be answered with "Wolfs" is whether the material they're working with is worthy of their respective talents. The answer is complicated, in that it's a "yes and no" type of answer, drifting more to not really.
You get the sense that the script was written with these two actors in mind and no one else. The film does poke fun at how these two loners are exactly alike, even when they insist otherwise. And yet, the narrative and direction loses its momentum around the halfway point, especially when you grasp some key observations. If you think about it, the banter between Clooney and Pitt here at its core is one-note and repetitious.
It starts out fine enough, establishing the situation and what's expected of our main leads to accomplish. A few spoiler-related developments unfold that you’ve probably seen in the trailer. It's after a chase through the city that the film's pacing and narrative construction loses its way. I don't know why these two are getting involved with this specific character with their goals.
I'm unsure what this has to do with what we've seen earlier, and I struggled to be reinvested back into the plot as a result. Even with the main plot developments that did unfold, namely a big shootout or two nearing the conclusion, they're underwhelming at best. You don't even see the shootouts in question at all. They happen either off-screen or via the final shot of "The Sopranos" finale.
Originally, "Wolfs" was supposed to be released nationwide in theatres courtesy of Sony, starting in limited release before hitting Apple TV. Instead, this film went straight to Apple TV so as "to not risk a public disappointment should the movie not succeed at the box office". Their quote, not mine. Given this film's overall underwhelming quality, I understand this decision to a certain extent. But it also does make you wonder, doesn't it?
If the distributors had more faith in the project, wouldn't they try and maximize its potential more, especially with the star power behind it? I'm informed that a possible sequel may be in the works. I'm not sure if there was enough here to convince me that a sequel would be worthwhile. If it wasn't for Clooney and Pitt working their charm off each other here, as they usually do, I doubt that "Wolfs" would hold their own out in the wild.
Final Verdict: 5.5/10
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