★★★½
In the new action comedy Wolfs, from Spider-Man director Jon Watts, a professional fixer (George Clooney) is hired to cover up a high-profile death at a new high-end New York hotel – think Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction. But when a second fixer (Brad Pitt) shows up the two “lone wolves” are forced to begrudgingly work together, over the course of a night that spins increasingly out of control.
To say any more would involve spoilers in a very spoilable movie that rests on two things – an unpredictably spiralling narrative, and the rat-a-tat-tat chemistry between its two stars, each constantly trying to one-up the other even as a simmering respect threatens to come to the boil. Wolfs is Michael Clayton meets Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Director Watts clearly has a great love of films where solitary professionals enact their highly-skilled trade – promoting the film here at Venice he has name-checked Le Samouraï, Blast of Silence, Ghost Dog, and Collateral – and there’s a lot of fun to be had watching two men who are used to being the alpha in the room respond to being in close proximity to what’s effectively a mirror image. What comes to mind is one of those videos of a big cat, or a gorilla, coming across a carefully positioned mirror in the forest, and jumping around trying to dominate its own reflection. And while they’re trying to undercut each other (Pitt laconic, Clooney petulant) the soundtrack in turn enjoys undercutting each of them, via various tongue-in-cheek deployments of Sade’s Smooth Operator.
With enough star-wattage between its leads to light up the whole of Times Square, and a plot that pings them back and forth across Manhattan over the course of one crazy night of escalating gangland misunderstandings, this is a knockaround action farce with plenty of heart. Recommended.
Wolfs premiered today at the Venice Film Festival and is coming soon to Apple TV+.
Whitlock&Pope 