Wolfs - Movie Review

Wolfs takes the reader into the life of two enemy ‘’fixer’’ who are employed by powerful men to remove a scandal in New York City. As they progress through the night, managing personal pride, and moral choices, their intertwining worlds are thrown into a twists and turns of blurred morality.

Typically, the atmosphere is tense with moments of black comedy that symbolise trust, betrayal and survival in the city’s gangland. Several keys themes are covered, with focus on detail on the concept of being the ‘lone wolf’, with the consequent loneliness and psychological pressures arising from being a professional shooter. It is characterized by a dark mood and shades of pessimism.

The two outstanding leading actors,George Clooney and Brad Pitt, all fit the portrayal of the ‘rogue individuals’ perfectly, bringing all the subtle shades of their personalities to the big screen. Paltrow and Downey have great chemistry where they are both competitive and polite to each other that adds substance to their complicated characters.

Overall, Jon Watts directors this complex plot in an excellent manner and keep audiences from start to finish engaged. His style is bright, early live-action, high-stakes with the humor, tightly builded plot and unpredictability, so the audience does not get bored.

The music matches the film’s mood and vibe altogether, fast and intense beats for the action scenes, and slow and reflective for introspective moments.

The camerawork also shows that New York is a bright and active city but also has its dark sides contrasting hope to despair. Lighting and framing add excitement to the visual pageant and contributes to the heightened suspense of the film.

The atmosphere is well duplicated through location, pent house, back street Alley and other beautiful shots. For this reason, the focus on realism ensures the audience is drawn into the tangents of contrast between power and corruption.

While stunts are nevertheless enhanced by CGI, they do not dominate the plot as a whole. Most of them are useful in developing tension especially where scenes such as the car chase and blasting scenes are involved.

The flow of the movie is well cut and smooth while at the same time creating tension all the time. The lack of any breaks between scenes and abrupt switch from one scene to another also gives the film a fast pace, thus keeping the audiences alert all through. It slows down only briefly to explore additional character backstory and ethical positions that are essential in between thrilling action sequences.

The writing in ‘Wolfs’ is intelligent and appealing, even the spoken dialogue is slick with humor, subtly outrageous in many cases. It does an excellent job of portraying what characters want and need, but because of its style, the movie can border on confusing as the plot deepens. Supporting characters should have been developed more to give a deeper emotional appeal to the film and its story.

Wolfs: Crime and Thriller, good performances by Clooney and Pitt. Only it’s heavier – it’s moral ambiguity and high intense drama that stays with the viewers for quite a long time after the movie is over. The film stimulates the thinking and the feeling processes to give the audience the ultimate cinematic experience.