Pitt and Clooney’s star power tested to the limit in a humorless, tedious slog | Entertainment

George Clooney and Brad Pitt made a public stink when Apple shifted the launch of their film “Wolfs,” for which they had been paid tens of hundreds of thousands to make, from theatrical to streaming.

“It is a bummer,” Clooney moaned at the Venice Film Festival when requested about his paycheck, er, sorry, his film.

Really, the pair ought to ship Apple CEO Tim Cook an Edible Arrangement for saving them the embarrassment of what would have been a large flop.

“Wolfs,” a so-called comedy written and directed by Jon Watts in which Clooney and Pitt play rival New York fixers tasked with discreetly disposing of a lifeless physique, is a dreadful, laugh-free slog that assessments the limits of what star power alone can salvage.

The A-list presence of Brad and George can't masks the elementary college dialogue they utter, the jumbled tone and Dollar Store aesthetic. In reality, their attachment to this compost solely exacerbates its many, many issues. 

The boldface names counsel a sure degree of high quality — or, at the very least, competence — that this film doesn't meet. Maybe I’d be extra forgiving if this buddy-cop retread starred Stephen and Billy Baldwin. Alas.

As it stands, woeful “Wolfs” received’t make you howl a lot as huff and puff.

Watts’ 108-minute yawn begins with a girl’s scream. That’s Margaret (Amy Ryan), and she has simply encountered a bare, lifeless physique in a luxurious resort suite.

Covered in the younger man’s blood, Marge lowers the blinds and shakily picks up her iPhone. Apple, attempting to make lemonade from its lemon, can at the very least hawk some cellular units.

“I was told if I ever need serious help to call this number,” she says. “There is only one man in the city who can do what you do.”

In walks black-clad Clooney, whose character has no identify or, you realize, traits. He dons rubber gloves and prepares to make the damaging state of affairs disappear. 

But it seems he’s not the solely man. A couple of minutes later, a downcast Pitt knocks on the door. 

His character has been employed by the resort’s proprietor, a disembodied voice, to full the similar process because it seems Margaret is a highly effective district lawyer who slept with the lifeless man, and the proprietor doesn’t need her enterprise tarnished by scandal. 

(Every New Yorker is aware of that high-profile crimes truly make locales extra alluring. Ask Sparks Steak House.)

The two shadowy fixers have by no means met and even have any familiarity, however they instantly hate one another for some obscure cause. And that, readers, is the solely joke of this whole film: Anything Brad can do, George can do higher.

Watts, whose “Spider-Man” movies for Sony are nice enjoyable, tosses away centuries of comedy guidelines by having each Pitt and Clooney play the straight man. 

So, we grimace as two smug, deflated, blasé dudes communicate so robotically they might be in a biopic referred to as “Siri.”

Two unspeakably bland males being quietly irritated at one another isn't humor as the world understands it. What’s humorous is how a lot product is in their mummified hair.

In the pantheon of Clooney and Pitt collaborations, I’d sooner rewatch “Oceans 12.”

“Wolfs” briefly finds a pulse from the introduction of the solely actor who’s awake, the gifted Austin Abrams, who performs Kid. Geeky and inquisitive, he tags together with George and Brad on their underwhelming tour of New York’s underbelly.

But as quickly as the focus shifts again to the two large film stars, our eyes glaze over. They noncommittally natter on about Croatian and Albanian crime syndicates and get in an impressively boring shootout whereas all the time being completely unbelievable in their roles. 

The sole advantage of “Wolfs” being launched straight to streaming is the unimaginable ease with which viewers can change over to “Oceans Eleven” after the first 5 minutes.