‘Wolfs’ adds new twist to the buddy comedy genre

When an action movie stars two funny male Hollywood actors, it’s easy to go in with certain expectations: absurdly high stakes, explosive car chases and quippy humor that often misses the mark. Yet the best thing about “Wolfs” is that it is not an action movie, a thriller or even a comedy — it’s a character study.

Marvel superstar director Jon Watts’s latest film features two fixers (Brad Pitt and George Clooney) who swoop in to clean and cover up any crime that needs erasing. They are both “lone wolves” required to operate with a “certain level of monasticism” — as they describe it themselves. The story begins when they are both called to cover up the same crime — a young college kid (Austin Abrams) falls backwards off the bed while fooling around with a prominent district attorney (Amy Ryan) and nearly dies.

In the beginning, this plot seems like a fairly good vehicle for some over-the-top action and comedy. The duo finds hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs hidden in the apartment around the same time they realize Abrams’s character is not actually dead — just inching closer to it. Things then start going off the rails. But, in the only unexpected twist of the film, all that set-up does not lead to much action; in fact, it was just a conversation starter for Pitt and Clooney’s characters.

“Wolfs” has two main gimmicks: The two guys are practically the same person, and they’re old. They wear the same all black clothes, say the same things at the same time and even have the same back problems. Each of their pit stops is just another opportunity to reveal their similarities, which they are — for some reason — continuously surprised by until the film’s end. Although their dynamic is not the exaggerated, boisterous one typical of buddy-cop films — or in this case, buddy-criminal — it’s clear Watts wrote the script specifically for these actors. Clooney’s signature sarcastic, quick humor matches Pitt’s charming and flippant style just well enough to make watching two somewhat boring middle-aged men talk worthwhile.

Even so, after the first hour of cracking joints and ibuprofen jokes, the film needs a kick back to life, which it gets from Austin Abrams. With such high profile actors featured, it was somewhat of a shock to see the much younger Abrams so high on the cast list. Yet it’s his naive, lively performance that gives “Wolfs” the energy it needs to carry on. Only referred to as “the Kid,” Abrams stars as a teenager just trying to do something with his life. Like the fixers, he didn’t really mean to be in this mess. As the situation grows dire, the Kid takes the brunt of the violence, facing all of the danger with false confidence and misplaced optimism. At twenty eight, very few actors would still be believable as sweet, innocent high schoolers, especially in the middle of a shootout, but Abrams pulls it off so well, he might even bring more sentimental viewers to tears.

Powerful acting aside, “Wolfs” is mostly dialogue. If you try to categorize it into a genre, it would fail at the essential part of almost every one. As an action movie, it’s not exciting enough. As a thriller, it’s fairly predictable with far too little suspense. As a comedy, it’s definitely not funny enough. Even as a drama, there’s not much “drama.” But when taken for what it is — a story about two old dogs learning some new tricks — “Wolfs” might just surprise you.