WOLFS ★★★ (M) 108 minutes A tale of two New York underworld fixers – played by Brad Pitt and George Clooney – who make a wrong day’s journey into night, Wolfs is nominally about rivals covertly cleaning up a crime scene, gangster machinations that leave them exposed, and the strain of masculine pride. But really, and ideally, it’s about movie stars. Specifically, the tangy screen sensation when you put two together and let them expertly simmer.
Brad Pitt and George Clooney trade on their ’90s charm as unnamed underworld fixers in Wolfs. The feature was written and directed by Jon Watts, who earned a gazillion bucks with his three Spider-Man blockbusters starring Tom Holland, and is now chilling with his one-for-me project. It opens in a luxury hotel suite where a potentate is panicked.
Margaret (Amy Ryan) has a barely dressed young man lying bloodied on the floor, and her call for help accidentally results in not one, but two lone wolves turning up to sort out her mess. Neither surreptitious fixer provides a name, which is fine since we only think of them as Brad and George anyway. “I didn’t know people like you really existed,” Margaret says, a line that works equally well for the plot and the now-veteran stars filling it out.
Watts has made a homage to old-school stardom, with Pitt and Clooney (60 and 63 years old respectively) underplaying every scene, whether it involves mutual bristling or farcical interludes. With a vibe from the 1990s – the deca.
