WOLFS (2024) • Frame qualified

When a high-flying Manhattan district attorney, Margaret Kretzer (Amy Ryan), meets an anonymous young man in her room, it ends with him dead on the floor. Not wanting her career and name to be tarnished by an accident with an escort, she desperately calls a number given to her by a friend…

A ‘fixer’ named Jack (George Clooney) immediately arrives and tells Margaret that he can cover up the situation and ensure that no one will ever know anything. But then Margaret gets a call from the hotel owner, Pamela Dowd-Henry (Frances McDormand), who witnessed the entire incident via a hidden camera. And in an effort to minimize the bad publicity her images might bring to her company, Pamela has sent her own fixer, Nick (Brad Pitt), to do the same job.

Clooney and Pitt immediately recapture their chemistry that was honed during the film Ocean Elf (2001-07) trilogy. The two fixers immediately take a dislike to each other, as they are both too similar to be nice to each other. Nick arrives and repeats the same questions Jack just asked before giving Margaret the same advice. Then they realize that they have to work together, save time and help their bosses.

Nick and Jack are different sides of the same coin. Jack is a bit older, grumpy and grizzly, and prefers skill to more energetic tasks. Nick is witty, but may lack the cunning of the older fixer. Jack’s superiority complex quickly irritates Nick, who soon realizes he can take a step back and simply judge the lone wolf.

Wolfena little too late in its running time, it eventually finds its narrative power when the supposedly dead body wakes up and goes on the run. This unnamed teenager (Euphoria’(Austin Abrams) and his bag of heroin cause an unexpected complication during the evening between Nick and Jack. Who owns the drugs, and will they like how the anonymous man tested the product?

In the third act, the two lone wolves zoom through snowy New York, trying to track down this mysterious teenager. European gangs are soon involved, and a smooth night for two fixers is filled with chases and guns. But never has a chase through the city been so annoying.

The setup is more like a rom-com than a crime caper. Two rivals who secretly respect each other must overcome their jealousy and prejudices to track down the man and his drug stash. The couple’s icy relationship slowly thaws as they travel through the cold city. They bicker all the time, but it’s clear that their mutual respect ultimately overcomes any complaints.

Written and directed by Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No way home), Wolfen does nothing special within the action-comedy genre and relies heavily on the charm of its leads. Jack and Nick, whose names are never mentioned, are thinly written archetypes brought to life by perhaps the two most charming actors of their generation. But both characters feel interchangeable, and there isn’t enough contrast to make their conversations sympathetic. The writing often feels flat, as both selfish lone wolves have the same level of cunning.

The idea of centering an entire film around an archetype often sidelined in crime stories – Harvey Keitel’s Winston in Pulp Fiction (1994) or Charlie by David Patrick Kelly John Wick (2014) I think – feels like a fresh take on the genre. Unfortunately, Wolfen quickly stops being about the guys cleaning up crime scenes and becomes just another car chase movie. Clooney and Pitt deserve a much smarter movie than that one Wolfen becomes eventually.

The world also never feels real and lacks heart. It’s too stuck in the moment, so the stakes feel low. Because no one has a backstory or real character traits, the audience may have trouble caring about anyone’s fate. Apart from the core trio, other characters are few and far between, making the world feel empty and flat. Amy’s Margaret is not seen again after the opening scene, and criminal doctor June (Poorna Jagannathan) appears too briefly to add color to the world of Wolfen. The film could have benefited from further world building and more characters.

Described as a comedy, there are few laughs. Any humor between the two men quickly becomes scarce as the jokes begin to repeat themselves. There’s only so much bickering between two men who claim to be opposites but are essentially the same person. The funnier elements are the physical jokes, which are in the minority.

Wolfen wastes its premise and delivers a slow-burn crime caper that refuses to take the genre anywhere new. The 108-minute running time feels long due to the repetitive bickering between the two men and the familiar beats that any moviegoer who has seen a crime film will recognize. It simply takes too long to get into the action, wasting time on lingering shots of a winter cityscape and Clooney driving around.

Despite George Clooney and Brad Pitt demonstrating their iconic charms as two crime scene fixers, Wolfen is a repetitive story about a seemingly boring and underpopulated part of the criminal underworld.

Cast & Crew

writer & director: Jon Watts.
starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan, Zlatko Burić, Richard Kind & Frances McDormand (voice).