{"id":148954,"date":"2024-09-23T10:51:14","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T09:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/?guid=549d02fa2054f92a8c35c0777f61a78f"},"modified":"2024-09-23T10:51:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T09:51:14","slug":"wolfs-review-its-content-not-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/wolfs-review-its-content-not-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolfs review \u2013 it\u2019s content, not cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"
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T<\/span>he discussion around whether or not we\u2019ve run out of bonafide movie stars seems to reoccur every few months within the film industry, usually linked to whichever bright young thing is lighting up the screen or whatever building Tom Cruise has thrown himself off on any given weekday. Naysayers claim that the industry is in a charisma crisis, and that very few actors are capable of trading on name recognition alone. Even once bankable names aren\u2019t bringing in the big bucks like they used to. But if there were ever two stars with the power to get bums on seats, it\u2019s Brad Pitt and George Clooney, reliably entertaining and effortlessly charismatic screen personas (the less said about Clooney the director<\/a> the better).<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been friends for years, starring in the Ocean\u2019s franchise on three occasions, but it\u2019s now 16 years since they last worked together (on the Coen Brothers\u2019 zippy caper Burn After Reading) and in that time the film landscape has altered dramatically. Case in point: Apple TV+ \u2013 founded in 2019 \u2013 financed Wolfs, the new non-IP project from Spider-Man director Jon Watts (though a sequel is already in the works, so it\u2019s become IP) and both Clooney and Pitt put money back into the project to support a theatrical release rather than a straight-to-streaming roll-out, indicating both actors still clearly believe in the spectacle and value of the cinema experience. (That this would need to happen seems absurd given that Watts\u2019 Spider-Man trilogy earned Sony a cool $4 billion, but this is where we\u2019re at in Hollywood I guess!)<\/p>\n

Wolfs \u2013 referring to both the lone wolf mantra of its co-leads, but incidentally a nod to Pulp Fiction\u2019s famous fixer Winston Wolf \u2013 sees Watts take a bring from Sony\u2019s web-slinging cash cow, as New York DA Margaret (Amy Ryan) finds herself in an unfortunate bind one night and prevails on a mysterious stranger (George Clooney) to come to her hotel suite and fix it. There\u2019s just one snag \u2013 the hotel\u2019s owner, Pam, is aware of what\u2019s happened and also sends a guy to clean up the situation (Brad Pitt). Margaret\u2019s Man and Pam\u2019s Man are indignant, responding to the notion they work together with all the enthusiasm of two small children forced to do group work with a kid they don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing particularly taxing about the plot of Wolfs, which unfolds in a predictable manner as Clooney and Pitt bicker their way through their reluctant assignment. Margaret\u2019s mess proves much harder to clean up than either of them expected when they discover a large quantity of heroin in her room and are inadvertently tasked with returning it to its owner (explained away blithely as the Albanian mob). While the mysterious finer details of Clooney and Pitt\u2019s characters are willfully obscured on account of their guarded professionalism, it\u2019s a shame that the film paints in such broad strokes more widely, as this doesn\u2019t leave much room for substantial character development or emotional investment.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of riffs about Pitt and Clooney getting on in years too, like them having bad backs, or needing to wear reading glasses to inspect a piece of paper, which naturally have diminishing returns. Watts\u2019 sense of humour is fairly mundane, and while there are some occasionally fun quips, the script doesn\u2019t offer much within itself, instead relying on its star wattage to do the heavy lifting. Pitt\u2019s performance doesn\u2019t feel particularly off-piste \u2013 we\u2019ve seen him play quietly confident, hyper-competent professionals before \u2013 but Clooney, considerably grumpier than he usually appears on screen, is quite delightful, and although the pair\u2019s real-life friendship might impede their believability as two strangers who take an immediate dislike to one another, there\u2019s certainly a sensation of being in a safe pair of hands.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s hard to not imagine what a more interesting filmmaker might be able to do with this classic odd couple set-up, as Watts plays it safe to the point of inducing boredom. Something about Wolfs feels too polished, too corporate in its execution, with the smooth metallic sheen of a brand-new iPhone. It\u2019s content, not cinema, even with two stars at the helm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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