Wolfs Review: A Lifeless, Monotone Buddy Comedy By and headline , an action crime-comedy of sorts. They play two fixers assigned to work together in one eventful night in New York City. This type of movie would have been a home run in the early 2000s.
We have two movie stars here, both of whom have acted together extensively in the Ocean’s trilogy and a scene in Burn After Reading. The crime comedy genre set in a snowy cityscape with two guys bickering has been pioneered by Shane Black. This film often feels like a spin on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Last Boy Scout.
But Jon Watts is no Shane Black, as this is one of the weakest entries into the genre I’ve seen. Wolfs has the same issue as another recent Apple TV+ movie, The Instigators. That film put together stars and and had them in the middle of a crime.
That movie suffered because Damon and Affleck’s characters were too similar for the buddy-cop dynamic to be funny. With Wolfs, Pitt and Clooney are actively trying to mimic each other. Unlike every successful buddy cop movie like Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour, where we have two different people at odds and butting heads, Wolfs has these two act so similarly that a character even comments that they talk and dress the same.
They are the same person and the least entertaining versions of themselves. Pitt and Clooney are two charismatic actors, but their charisma is muted here. They’re both very monotone in their line delivery, and everything lacks energy.
This rings tru.
