A Margherita pizza is a classic for a reason: you mix cheese and tomato atop a well-baked base with a handful of fresh basil leaves, and it works. The same goes for action movies. If you have two competent stars and a well-baked script with a handful of inspired add-ons, it works. You don’t get much bigger stars than George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who reunite for the first time in sixteen years in Jon Watts’s “Wolfs” as two unnamed fixers who realize they have been booked to do the same job.
The job, which begins as a relatively simple murder scene clean-up, is complicated by a nasty hat trick: the involvement of a powerful district attorney (Amy Ryan), a backpack filled to the brim with a mysterious drug, and the fact the body is not a body but a very much alive blabbermouth played by “Euphoria” alum Austin Abrams and referred to only as “Kid.”
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To have two hardheaded men who don’t get along forced to spend an unusually stressful night together is not necessarily reinventing the wheel, but Watts finds in the familiar premise a fitting vehicle to pair up the old friends. All the plotting and scheming required to get the job done sees the two bouncing off each other as in the days of “Ocean’s 11,” while the action sequences allow the duo to stretch out their physical acting chops, the smooth fixers cocking guns and kicking doors with the charming confidence of those who know what they’re doing.
But, while “Wolfs” proves a competent action flick, it’s the earnestness of the central premise that makes it such an endearing effort. Watts titles his film after the idea of the lone wolf, with Pitt and Clooney playing two versions of the same coin: weary men who spent their entire lives working in solitude and in permanent distrust of all others like them. Their unexpected meeting alerts both to a need they had not recognized within themselves before, a yearning not only for camaraderie but for seeing oneself reflected in another, someone in the world with a deep understanding of the tricky logistics of a demanding career and the emotional toll it entails.
That it is two of the most well-known American male actors of all time that get to play out this concept adds another layer of meaning to Watts’s seemingly facile affair. This is mostly due to the film’s insistence on acknowledging the character’s aging in a not-so-subtle nod to that of their interpreters. The two pros take great care in lifting heavy weights with their quads instead of their lower back, pull prescription glasses out of cool leather jackets, and have a stack of Advil sitting next to bullets in handy glove compartments. It is amusing, if not slightly repetitive, commentary that works largely because the duo seems to be having a great time with the self-deprecating humor.
The leading pair sticking the landing on roles written for them feels a relatively low-effort achievement. It is Adams who proves the great surprise as the gullible Kid whose faith in the two dubious strangers he met during the craziest night of his life defies all human logic, and yet it is so very endearing. The young actor is a delight throughout, waving his gangly limbs like a recently inflated tube man while running semi-naked through the freezing streets of New York and punctuating his lines with a mix of pleading moans and confident tuts capable of eliciting a hearty belly laugh from even the biggest skeptic. His youthful naïveté is the catalyst to the film’s central breakthrough and Abrams.
Speaking of the supporting cast, “Wolfs” features one of the greatest sightings at any film’s opening credits: Richard Kind. It’s a shame the famed character actor proves just as sparse here as daylight, but his presence is a joy nonetheless. He joins the Pitt and Clooney show alongside another great character actor in Zlatko Burić playing yet another bad crook with a thick Croatian accent, and “Never Have I Ever” Poorna Jagannathan, hiking up the film’s slim female quota as a doctor with impeccable skills but very little time for the silly buffoonery two grown men can so easily get themselves into.
At a time when more and more filmmakers seem to be looking back at the basics of classic genres like cop procedurals, romantic comedies, and crime thrillers, Watts brings to the table a tightly written and directed action comedy that is reminiscent of the era that crowned the genre without alienating itself from the time in which it was made. That he does so with a Pitt and Clooney in top form only makes it an already easy sell. [B+]
“Wolfs” comes to Apple TV+ on September 27.
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