Mikes Film Talk

The 2024 buddy picture Wolfs features Brad Pitt and George Clooney bickering all the way to the film’s finish. Let there be no mistake, though, this is a buddy pic through and through. It also owes a good bit to William Goldman and his iconic western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Writer/director Jon Watts is clearly a fan of the Goldman script and the 1969 film directed by George Roy Hill. While Wolfs is not an entire film dedicated to the “original” buddy picture, there is a lot of love shown here.

*Although there is also a bit of love shown to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This is another buddy film that I absolutely adore. It shares a good bit with Wolfs in terms of everything coming together for an almost perfect film.*

The story

An imminent politician finds herself in a hotel room with a recently deceased young man. (No, he is not a prostitute.) She calls a number and a “fixer” or “cleaner” arrives to fix the problem.

Seconds after he starts clearing the scene, another fixer arrives. The two testosterone driven men start competing immediately. They end up, much to their mutual annoyance, working together on the job.

The Main Cast

In order of appearance:

Amy Ryan is the politico with the problem.

George Clooney is Margaret’s Man, the first to arrive on scene.

Austin Abrams is the dead kid/boy.

Brad Pitt is Pam’s Man, the second “expert” to arrive.

Poorna Jagannathan is June; the bullet puller.

A Buddy Western

For all intents and purposes, Watt’s gives us a “buddy western” in terms of story, character interaction and nods to other buddy films. The almost serendipitous pairing of the two leads also feels like a nod to Ocean’s (fill in number here.)

I make the comparison to Butch and Sundance because of the buddy feel and one scene in particular. *No I won’t say which one as that leaps annoyingly into spoiler territory.* This modern day offbeat and darkly funny “western” is a good time.

The two actors pull off their various roles with almost joyful aplomb. Pitt mugging almost constantly and Clooney’s eye rolling play well off one another. The underlying current of “these two could be the same man” works well as does their almost annoying personalities.

Major Kudos

Austin Abrams is brilliant as the “dead guy.” The entire film allows him to almost comically show off his acting chops. Major kudos also go to the action presented in the script. Wyatt makes the most of his creation here and Wolfs is a fun film to watch.

Everything works. The cinematography, the editing and the soundtrack all mix together perfectly. It is this perfect blend that allows us to enjoy these two, almost, two dimensional characters. This ain’t Shakespeare folks but it shows why movies were invented.

That’s Entertainment

Wolfs is pure entertainment. Although I will admit to a certain annoyance to the title itself. Sure a lone wolf times two is a couple of wolfs, I suppose, but the plural of wolf is wolves. The Albanian gangster even shouts out, as he shoots at the two, “Wolves! Not buddies!” Even his character knew wolfs was not right.

This is, grammar differences aside, a top notch effort. I may be the only critic around who loves this one. A full 5 stars may be too little for this buddy picture streaming on Apple TV right now.

The trailer