Wolfs

“Every character of colour in Wolfs falls into some kind of trope, to differing degrees.”

Title: Wolfs (2024)
Director: Jon Watts 👨🏼🇺🇲
Writer: Jon Watts 👨🏼🇺🇲

Reviewed by Sarah Manvel 👩🏼🇺🇲🇮🇪🌈

Technical: 3/5

In 2016, action buddy movie The Nice Guys starred Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as semi-competent private investigators solving murders in Los Angeles. Since then, there have been calls for a sequel, and in a sense, Wolfs meets that demand.

Taking place in the run-up to Christmas, Jon Watts’ Apple TV+ film (which had its world premiere at this year’s Venice International Film Festival) involves two competent fixers. It treads a similarly fine line between appalling violence and hapless mayhem (only this time in New York City). The familiar story works thanks to the appeal of its two big movie stars, George Clooney and Brad Pitt (named simply as “Margaret’s Man” and “Pam’s Man,” respectively), both of whom seem to be competing to remind us why they’re such colossal names in the first place. The movie around them is expertly made, but make no mistake, they’re the main attraction. Relying heavily on Clooney and Pitt’s charm, Wolfs gives them nothing new to serve up.

Gender: 3/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES, but barely (one woman is offscreen, speaking over the phone)

Amy Ryan plays Margaret, a district attorney and public figure whose misbehaviour sets the whole plot in motion. Frances McDormand contributes voice-work as Pamela Dowd-Henry, the never-seen owner of the hotel where the misbehaviour takes place. And Poorna Jagannathan is an off-the-books doctor named June, who restores a decent young man (Austin Abrams) caught up in the mess back to health.

Despite their pivotal roles in the narrative, these women don’t get much screen time. They serve their purpose, then vanish. Everything else in the film turns into a dude-fest. Or more specifically, “Dudes Get Into Shootouts Under the Highway,” “Dudes Crash a Wedding and are Forced to Dance,” and “Dudes Pop Some Advil Because of Their Bad Backs.” We’re told that women have positions of power, but none of it is ever really explored.

Race: 2/5

The credited cast is very small, so it’s extra noticeable that the three main actors, who get the lion’s share of screen time, are all white men (Pitt, Clooney, and Abrams). The most substantial role for a character of colour is Jagannathan’s June, who slips into a trope as an Asian doctor who works out of Chinatown behind a Chinese restaurant. That said, she acts with confidence and easily stands up to the white fixers who beg for her help, which helps defray the worst parts of this “model minority” stereotype.

Unfortunately, all of the film’s other non-white characters are largely used as window dressing: A Black female hotel receptionist upstaged by the set design, an East Asian man in Chinatown who pauses to gawk at Abrams’ and Pitt’s characters, etc. With even less care, the film’s various gangsters are described solely by their ethnicities—Croatian and Albanian. They crash into the laziest of gangster cliches, shown at a lavish wedding for a mob boss’ daughter, then later with machine guns ablaze (and very few survivors). Even an offscreen character, known simply by the Latino-implied name of Diego, has the unsavoury position as a drug runner who drags the kindhearted white kid (Abrams) into a dangerous mess.

Ultimately, it’s better that Wolfs—so clearly set in New York City—doesn’t entirely ignore people of colour, which would be incredibly jarring. But it’s eye roll-inducing that every one of them falls into some pre-existing stereotype to differing degrees.

Bonus for Age: +0.75

The main cast, with the exception of Abrams (named simply “Kid” in the credits), is almost entirely made up of actors older than 50. Clooney, Pitt, McDormand, and Richard Kind (who has a minor but important scene) are in their 60s. Ryan, who’s called “hot” by Abrams’ character, is in her 50s. And at no point are their ages mentioned at all. As a bonus, district attorney Margaret and hotel-owner Pam hold positions of great power. Their unquestioned power to hire men to solve their problems is really refreshing.

Mediaversity Grade: C 2.92/5

Writer-director Watts has served up a capable action story in which the casting of Clooney and Pitt should have been a one-two knockout punch. But all their star power only serves a cookie-cutter plot which wastes the charm of its premise.

Like Wolfs? Try these other titles featuring grumpy men.

*Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)*

Grade: CLiSeptember 19, 2024Great for: Age