Review of “Wolfs”: Just let yourself be overwhelmed by laughter

If all you want in a movie is to see two megastars flaunting their gorgeous beauty and making you smile, then Wolfs is for you. The film is in theaters now. Of course, this glitzy package will hit AppleTV+ just a week later on September 27, but sometimes you need a big screen to truly appreciate the alpha male power of George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Two minutes after you leave the theater, you may have forgotten the plot (I'm going through my notes right now), but AARP-eligible Clooney, 63, and Pitt, 60, will stay in your mind, so much fun are their company even when their characters need glasses and a quick fix for their back pain.

Clooney and Pitt have no names to keep the secret. They both play fixers who cover up the dirty dealings of rich clients. And they work alone.

But this time, that's not the case. Lone wolf Clooney first enters the scene in a penthouse suite of a Manhattan hotel, where his nervous client Margaret (Amy Ryan), a district attorney, has summoned him to do something about the unconscious body of a half-naked young stud (Austin Abrams) lying at the foot of the bed, surrounded by broken glass.

Clooney had a similar role in 2007's “Michael Clayton,” a morality thriller that earned him an Oscar nomination. I'd say he should have won, but Daniel Day Lewis was unbeatable in “There Will Be Blood.” Whatever the case, “Wolfs” isn't about awards; it's a fun, low-key prank that allows Clooney and Pitt to play as loosely as they did in “Ocean's 11” and its two successful sequels.

Pitt comes hot on Clooney's heels, sent by the phone-in voice of the invisible Pam, the hotel owner who doesn't want scandal to tarnish her establishment's snooty reputation. Written and directed by Jon Watts (who directed all three of Tom Holland's Spider-Man epics), “Wolfs” is really all about Clooney and Pitt trying to outdo each other in words and deeds.

“There's no one who can do what I can do,” Clooney boasts, only to have Pitt say the same thing a minute later. And so begins a contentious bromance, complicated by the fact that the naked boy is still alive and in possession of a backpack full of drugs he stole from Albanian gangsters.

And they set off on a nighttime tour of the Big Apple – impressively filmed by Larkin Seiple – that takes them from Chinatown to Brighton Beach, with a stop at a Croatian wedding. Don't ask. Just let the laughter wash over you.

At one point, the boy tells his captors, “You wear the same clothes, you talk the same, you're basically the same guy.” He doesn't mention the same gray stubble. But Clooney and Pitt are pros who know how to use their magnetic star presence to get their voices heard when the jokes get repetitive and the action gives way to the hackneyed script.

No matter. A sequel is already planned if fans demand it. And they might. I can imagine a future Wolf movie where Clooney and Pitt solve crimes in a care facility and complain about their soup getting cold. Their brand of cool is timeless.