"Time was when a new comedy thriller starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt would have been huge box-office news," said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. "But film-watching habits change and even the most handsome of leading men grow older, so it's a sign of gently diminished times that "Wolfs" is going straight to streaming, and probably won't be troubling voters overmuch come awards time."
Should 'pleasingly pass a Saturday night'
Yet "Wolfs" is not undiverting. Clooney and Pitt have some fun with their roles as highly skilled "fixers" who operate as lone wolves, until they are both employed to make the dead body of a young man disappear from an upmarket New York hotel.
The screenplay could have done with "a few more killer one-liners", but the film should "pleasingly pass a Saturday night".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Not that entertaining
"'Wolfs', which is an Apple TV production, carries itself as Hollywood entertainment like they used to make it," said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. "But it actually belongs to a very modern and depressing strain of cinema: the streaming platform work-creation scheme, in which famous names are slotted into lightweight action comedies in order to bring flesh-and-blood glamour to a digital brand."
Having suffered through a few of these, "I'm not entirely convinced they're actually meant to be watched": rather, they're the movie equivalent of those rows of books you see in show homes that are actually made of cardboard.
"Wolfs" has a nice premise and starts well enough, said Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman. But for a film that is intended as pure entertainment, it's not that entertaining; and its stars' charm has morphed so far into smugness, they border on the annoying.
-
6 homes for entertainingFeature Featuring a heated greenhouse in Pennsylvania and a glamorous oasis in California
-
The 8 greatest heist movies of all timethe week recommends True stories, social commentary and pure escapism highlight these great robbery movies
-
Film reviews: ‘Jay Kelly’ and ‘Sentimental Value’Feature A movie star looks back on his flawed life and another difficult dad seeks to make amends
-
6 homes on the Gulf CoastFeature Featuring an elegant townhouse in New Orleans’ French Quarter and contemporary coastal retreat in Texas
-
The vast horizons of the Puna de AtacamaThe Week Recommends The ‘dramatic and surreal’ landscape features volcanoes, fumaroles and salt flats
-
The John Lewis ad: touching, or just weird?Talking Point This year’s festive offering is full of 1990s nostalgia – but are hedonistic raves really the spirit of Christmas?
-
Train Dreams pulses with ‘awards season gravitas’The Week Recommends Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton star in this meditative period piece about a working man in a vanished America
-
Middleland: Rory Stewart’s essay collection is a ‘triumph’The Week Recommends The Rest is Politics co-host compiles his fortnightly columns written during his time as an MP
