There are some jobs that only old pros can competently do, and director Jon Watts (Spider-Man Homecoming) understood this very well. His new film Wolfspresented at the Venice Film Festival and now available on Apple TV+, brings together George Clooney and Brad Pitt on screen, in the role of two professional “fixers” forced to work together to make a bulky corpse disappear. More than fifteen years later Burn After Reading et Ocean’s Eleventhe two Hollywood superstars, now in their sixties, once again play opposite each other in this buddy comedy perfectly honed.
In a luxurious hotel room, a New York prosecutor in the middle of a re-election campaign accidentally finds herself with a dead man on her hands. To avoid scandal, she calls on the only man capable of making all her troubles disappear. She was warned: “This man is an expert. This man is a professional. And maybe one day you’ll need a man like that.”
This providential man, who came to save the prosecutor and our Sunday evening, is of course George Clooney – charming, serious, reassuring. In his hands, we know that everything will go well. But a few minutes later, another fixer arrives, played by Brad Pitt – charming, sarcastic, slightly menacing. Both are so inseparable from their public image that the film does not even bother to name their characters.
Buddy comedy
Between the two men responsible for cleaning up the crime scene, a rivalry quickly arises. Two characters who don’t get along but must collaborate despite their differences: Lethal Weapon has Men in Black passing through The Nice Guysit is one of the most infallible formulas in American cinema. Based on visual gags, well-placed retorts and frenetic action scenes, Wolfs in turn offers a delightful and unpretentious variation of the buddy movie. The ingredients are familiar and the old Hollywood recipe perfectly executed. The film, set during the holidays during a snowy night, can even reach Crystal Trap in the Christmas action film category – what a shame it comes out in September.
To spice things up slightly, Jon Watts adds a hint of meta commentary, skillfully playing on the aura of his pre-retiring mega-stars. At each new opportunity, the two men bicker, compare their tips and techniques and gently tug at each other’s legs. “He had his heyday, the time when he was the coolest, the one everyone called him, but that moment is long over”observes Brad Pitt’s character nonchalantly about his colleague.
Certainly, the two fixers have back problems and are no longer young. Yet, despite their advanced age, no one in their field is capable of doing what they do with such brilliance. Without forgetting that they keep an undeniable allure (“you are the coolest guys I have ever met”they will be told in the film). If the parallel seems obvious to you, that’s because it is. While Hollywood is dominated by franchise projects carried by interchangeable actors, few contemporary performers have managed to achieve the status of movie star of a Pitt or a Clooney.
But unlike Tom Cruise, who outshone everyone in (the excellent) Top Gun: Maverick, Wolfs let the new generation shine too. The two veterans share the bill with a third partner who is no less charming: Austin Abrams, noted in numerous series such as The Walking Dead, The Americans or Dash & Lily.
New York as a character
Wolfs also makes its location a character in its own right. We cross a changing New York, with construction on every street corner and billboards promising a better future. From airtight luxury hotels to seedy rat-infested motels, from bridges to the subway to all-night diners, the film is a true New York epic. With at its heart a thrilling and inventive chase sequence between Chinatown and Brooklyn.
After Anorathis year’s Palme d’Or winner by Sean Baker, this feature film also attempts to sketch the cynicism of the Big Apple and the ever-widening gulf between the ultra-rich and the rest of the population. But if we savor Wolfsit is above all for the comforting pleasure of its familiar codes, embodied by two seasoned experts who, wrinkles or not, remain inimitable.
And yet. Despite its cast of big names paid 35 million per head, and despite a sequel already confirmed, the film saw its theatrical release window reduced to just one week in the United States and completely canceled in France. To watch the reunion of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, two of the biggest contemporary stars, you will have to go to Apple TV+. A film like we don’t make anymore – on the big screen, anyway.
Jon Watts
with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Austin Abrams
Duration: 1h48
Born September 27, 2024 (Apple TV+)
Source: www.slate.fr
