Venice Film Festival 2024 – Wolfs ★★★★

Released: 27 September 2024

Director: Jon Watts

Starring: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams

A high profile DA, Margaret (Amy Ryan) invites a young man, she has just met, to her suite in a top end hotel. During what is meant to be an evening of no ties fun,  the exuberant young man falls (literally) foul of an acrobatic jump and may have been killed. A panicked Margaret calls a confidential number she has been given for just such events. 

Quietly and speedily a man appears at the door ready to sort everything out as if it never happened. The mysterious man (George Clooney) is a professional ‘fixer’. His job is to make inconvenient scrapes public figures have got themselves into disappear. He’s the best of the best at ensuring that no outsiders get a whiff of the potential scandal. Or is he?

Just as he starts to clean up, another mysterious fixer (Brad Pitt) shows up. He, too, is the best of the best. It seems that someone else knows of the troublesome situation too. And there may be some double crossing deception going on.

To add to Margaret’s woes, the young man, assumed dead and therefore, helpfully, unable to talk, turns out to still be very much alive. And he is in possession of a package that will be of interest to some dangerous people.

It’s a bigger mess than anyone had assumed. What to do? The answer is that the two fixers, who each usually work as a lone wolf, realise they have to team up to clean up. 

So, reluctantly and each highly suspicious of the other, they set off to trek through New York with the unwell but irritating kid and his trouble filled bag, trying hard to avoid getting killed by rival groups who might be fighting for the bag’s contents.

Wolfs brings Pitt and Clooney back together on screen for the first time since the popular and very successful Oceans films and while this is the jaded, slightly downbeat country cousin of those glamorous, big cast capers, it’s a lively and likeable ride. 

Yes, it’s gossamer light. Yet there are worse ways to spend 1.5 hours than in the company of two ageing but still attractive and charismatic heartthrobs, bringing their considerable charm to the big screen.

Wolfs won’t be troubling awards voters or vying for massive box office (it’s only in cinemas for a week before moving to a streaming service) but it’s a delightfully entertaining, star power driven Hollywood offering that the industry doesn’t make enough of anymore.

Frankly, it should. In grim times audiences look to the silver screen for enjoyment and pleasure. Wolfs offers both in spades. Boasting stunts, chases, shootouts, quick wit banter, in jokes, ugly bad guys, good guy lessons learnt and just the right mix of comedy and crime thriller. Pitt and Clooney have an infectious chemistry and are never less than enjoyably watchable.

At a time when too many films are bloated and indulgent. Wolfs never outstays its welcome, being as slim and toned as Brad’s abs in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with even a hint of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in its closing moments.

Wolfs is perfect Friday film night fare.