Start the week with a film: In ‘Wolfs’, a match made in movie heaven

Nothing much to see here, just two megawatt movie stars pretending to dislike each other before showing us just how well-suited they are together. Jon Watts’s Wolfs wins most of its battle with its casting. Fortunately, the Apple TV+ release is more than a match made in movie heaven.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt play professional fixers hired to clean up messy crimes scenes. A district attorney (Amy Ryan) who has an inconvenient date with a young man who happens to have a satchel full of drugs forces the self-declared lone wolves to combine forces.

Over the course of a single night, in a depopulated city magnificently shot by Larkin Seiple, Jack (Clooney) and Nick (Pitt) share duties baby-sitting a young man known as the Kid and try not to get on each other’s nerves. As they say in the movie: it’s going to be a long night, but with the right company, that’s alright.

The action comedy delivers knowingly lightweight crises and grizzled banter. The emphasis on pleasing aesthetics extends from the lead actors to the locations – even the grungy streets have a sheen to them.

A slow, graceful dance develops between men who have been hugging opposite corners of the ballroom. Fast friends in real life, Clooney and Pitt glide through the 107-movie to the tune of Sade’s Smooth Operator.

Their double act is a reminder of Robert Redford and Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid back in 1969. George Roy Hill’s buddy Western hangs over Wolfs in other ways too, from a shared girlfriend to the movie’s final frame.

Austin Abrams manages to steal some attention as the nerdy, nervy Kid. Poorna Jagannathan has a cameo as a doctor who contributes to a series of seemingly disconnected events that turn out to be linked. At least, that’s what the final sequence will have us believe. A sequel is inevitable – and will be welcome, for a change.