Can Wolfs prove that George Clooney and Brad Pitt are still movie stars?

George Clooney and Brad Pitt are back on the big screen together, this time in an AppleTV+ film called Wolfs.

Wolfs finds the Hollywood duo playing a pair of "fixers" who have to team up to solve the problem in front of them, and face the challenges that lie ahead as their night spirals out of control.

Today on Commotion, critics Rachel Ho, Kathryn VanArendonk and Jackson Weaver join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about whether the film will become a standout in Clooney and Pitt's joint filmography.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, including the panel's thoughts on Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis and how they're remembering Dame Maggie Smith, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Kathryn, in many ways [Wolfs] is the anti-Megalopolis…. What do we need to know about Wolfs? 

Kathryn: So the premise of Wolfs is that George Clooney and Brad Pitt play two fixer-cleaner guys. You end up in a bad situation, somehow there's a dead body, you have to call a guy to clean it all up. But somehow two guys show up, and one of them's George Clooney, and one of them's Brad Pitt. And they unfortunately — or fortunately, because we all understand how this is going to go — have to work together to fix up this awkward situation. They're going to end up running after a mostly naked guy in the streets. Are they going to end up yelling at somebody but they actually all work with that person together? Are they going to get mad? Is Brad Pitt going to eat food? Yes.

Framing it as the anti-Megalopolis is exactly correct because it is a movie that you go into knowing what it's going to be, and then it delivers, somehow, exactly that, except slightly less. Because part of what you were looking for is for it to exceed that expectation, and then it just does not.

Elamin: Rachel, this movie seems to have all the ingredients on paper to be a gigantic hit. You've got two of the biggest stars around. You've got a pretty gigantic budget, a premise that sounds fun if you're describing it to a friend. How do you feel about this movie in execution?

Rachel: Yeah, this is the seven out of 10. It's perfectly fine if you want to throw it on on, like, a lazy Saturday, you've got nothing to do, but by Monday you've completely forgotten about it…. So this is that kind of indifferent film. It's entertaining at times. Clooney and Pitt are as charming as we know them to be all the time, but it is very bland in its own way. I agree with Kathryn, it is less than what you expect it to be.

But if you could put that up against Megalopolis, Megalopolis you're going to remember. This one, you're going to be like, "Oh yeah, I forgot that the two of them did another movie together, and it's not Ocean's and it's not Burn After Reading."

Elamin: First of all, hot take: that's what I want to experience from movies, you know? I watch a movie and go, "I had a pleasant time," and not think about it two days later. Like, sometimes there are movies where I'm like, oh, this is a moment, and this is high art, and they should deliver the thing that they needed to deliver. There are some times where I just want to watch a movie and go, this is not engaging in any kind of discourse whatsoever. In fact, this is just an experience that's going to last 90 minutes, two hours if you must, and then I'm out. 

Jackson, we should say AppleTV+ greenlit a sequel to Wolfs before it even premiered, but then they scrapped the plans for the movie to have a wider release because it was in theatres only for a week, and now it's available on streaming. What do you think is the lesson here for movie industry execs who are like, "Get me George Clooney and Brad Pitt," you know?

Jackson: I mean, we had this alleged slight from Quentin Tarantino to George Clooney, saying that he's not a movie star anymore because he can't carry movies. And George Clooney kind of fired a shot across his bow saying that's not true, I'm a huge movie star. But he might be proven right here, if he really said that, because I don't think this star power name recognition is going to be enough to push this movie across the finish line. 

It might be confirmation of what Matt Damon, I think, said forever ago: that the A-lister — the name that is going to sell a movie — that doesn't really exist anymore. Now it's more of a character. Like, Captain America is going to sell a movie, not whatever random Chris is playing him now. So that might be proof.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jean Kim.