George Clooney and Brad Pitt star in Wolfs, a film attempting to rekindle their charismatic performances in the Oceans franchise, in what is only their second appearance together since. However, Jon Watts’s follow-up to the financially successful Tom Holland Spider-Man trilogy provides Clooney and Pitt with an empty meaningless script with the heart of the Grinch and the charm of an outdated Wetherspoons.
The film opens in a fancy hotel room, as Amy Ryan’s Margaret, a Manhattan district attorney, attempts to cover up the body of a boy who has died in order to keep her image clean and untainted. After several unsuccessful attempts, Margaret calls a number which puts her through to George Clooney, an unnamed Wolf (yes, like in Pulp Fiction), hired to clean up the situation as if nothing happened. However soon after Brad Pitt’s also unnamed Wolf arrives at the scene after the Hotel hire him, with a series of winding and pointless obstacles are placed in the way to bring these two opposing forces together.
Much like Watts’s other work, Wolfs left me with an empty feeling where I zoned in and out of this meaningless journey as Clooney and Pitt attempt to hide any evidence to spare a wannabe politician. Although on a positive note, in a few years time, it is the sort of film that will appear on Film4 and you can jump in at any point and quickly understand what is happening without prior information, as there often isn’t much to know.
Part of the struggle to care about this film is that you don’t get to understand the characters, you don’t even get to know their names, in what I can only assume is an attempt to be cool, hip and unique. However, Clooney and Pitt’s characters are professional, straight and uncharismatic with little backstory to fear for their safety or job security when things go sideways. The closest the pair get to some sort of development is when one acknowledges that they are mildly impressed by the other doing something slightly different.
Clooney and Pitt are only here to provide Hollywood stardom, which appealed to Apple TV + when they acquired the rights to the film. Whilst neither Pitt nor Clooney is particularly bad in the film, their performances feel tired and bored, and the material provides them with no opportunity to show their acting ability other than the odd skit of comedy. For the most part, they are empty vessels running around the Christmasy streets of New York, which admittedly look bright and colourful in a surprisingly well-shot film.
Wolfs is the sort of film perfect for a streaming channel, sort of fitting with the current cinematic climate, is a film that would fail in the cinema as it is a background film, something that you switch on the telly, get on with your paperwork and occasionally look up to the screen to see someone get run over by a car. It is an attempt to make a small, one-night, contained, buddy film, where the characters become friends as they get out of a singular scenario. It is a film that has been played out before and will be played out again. Thankfully, Wolfs isn’t the first film of this sub-genre I have seen as I may not want to see one again in this boring, sluggish film that banks on the star power of Clooney and Pitt to gain viewership.
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