"Wolfs" Is Ungrammatical Fun

Amusing geezer-teaser bromance

Looks like Apple TV is cornering the market on watchable/disposable crime flicks featuring aging Hollywood stars. Last month they gave us The Instigators with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, which I remember enjoying but could not summarize for you at gunpoint. It’s just that forgettable.

And now: Wolfs.

You get the basic idea. Two aging “fixers” — the guys rich people call when they’re in deep doo-doo and need someone to make it all go away, usually involving the disposal of a dead body — are forced to team up to survive one crazy night in New York City. Hijinks, as one would expect, ensue.

That’s why it’s called Wolfs, see. Each guy thinks of himself as a lone wolf, a solo act. Most of the movie involves these two self-styled alpha males getting on each other’s nerves until they learn to work together.

We never even learn the two guys’ names, but it doesn’t matter because it’s George Clooney and Brad Pitt pretending to be criminals who start out hating each other but become grudging pals. They’re both in their sixties now, but they can still pretend to be cool a little while longer.

Gotta say, though, the aging stick has been hitting Clooney in the face a lot harder lately. He’s only a couple years older than Pitt, but it looks like there’s a full decade between them.

Writer/director Jon Watts is responsible for the most recent Spider-Man movies, so by now he’s an old hand with action. And Clooney & Pitt have, well, old hands. They’re a bit creaky — there’s a running gag about their bad backs and eyes — but they can still charm an audience.

Clooney has made headlines recently with his real-world shenanigans, like forcing Joe Biden out of the presidential race at Obama’s behest. Which is appropriate, considering the last time I enjoyed one of his movies was when Obama was president. But he’s enjoyable here. The role is perfect for him because he doesn’t really need to emote much.

Special mention to Austin Abrams, whose role I don’t want to spoil. He steals the show from his elders with a hilariously frenetic three-minute monologue, and his comedic timing is impeccable. Kinda reminds me of a young Dustin Hoffman, or maybe Harry Dean Stanton.

If you don’t have Apple TV, it’s probably not worth signing up just to watch Wolfs. But if you do, there are worse ways to waste a couple of hours. More than I can say for just about any of the new movies on Netflix.

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The 1980s were the greatest decade in human history. But hair metal wasn’t that bad.

Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ‘80s Hair Metal on Paramount+ is a lot of frickin’ fun. It also has a heck of a lot of cursing, gosh darn it.

There are lotsa crazy stories of rock & roll decadence, with the occasional heartbreaking tragedy that’s tough for the survivors to talk about. But the only difference between the two categories is sheer chance. For every “Then we got kicked out of the hotel,” there’s a “Then somebody died.”

For example, legendary guitar wizard Randy Rhoads died in a completely preventable single-engine airplane accident because the pilot kept trying to “buzz” the band’s tour bus. If they hadn’t crashed, it would’ve just been another funny story for Ozzy to tell. Well, no, he probably wouldn’t even remember it.

After watching this docuseries, I’m amazed any of them are still alive.

There’s also the story of the forgotten glam-rock band Tuff, whose first single was a minor hit in 1991. Unfortunately for them, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit the charts a few weeks later, and the whole hair-metal scene collapsed almost overnight.

Hey, you can’t spell “trend” without “end.”

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TGIF (Tiresome Ghouls Incriminated Ferdinand), and thanks for reading. If you enjoy my typing, please pay me so I can keep doing it.