VENICE, Italy—District Attorney Margaret (Amy Ryan) is in big trouble. On an impulse, she invited a younger man back to her hotel room—and it was going well…until he collapsed on the floor and died. What was supposed to be a fun night of debauchery and stress relief turned into something awful. She’s terrified and covered in blood. Being discovered in this state would be disastrous for her career. There’s only one person Margaret can call: A Wolf.
They work alone, and only alone. Wolfs are fixers—they do the work that nobody else is willing to do, and they do it discreetly. Wind up with a dead guy in your hotel room? A Wolf is who you call to make sure that guy not only is no longer in your room, but that there’s no trace that that person ever was anywhere near you at all. These are the people who work in the underbelly of society, leaving no trace. They have names, and they may even have families. But you’ll never learn anything about them. “There’s nobody who can do what I do,” ).
They’re both lifeless and their characters lack any interiority. The joke is that they’re annoyed with each other and are convinced that they work completely differently, when the reality is that they’re extremely similar. This renders both their characters identical—if they swapped all their dialogue, it would make no difference whatsoever. Austin Abrams is the only major player to walk away unscathed from Wolfs, delivering a charming and genuinely funny performance as a man who unexpectedly finds himself assisting the fixers.
I can only assume Wolfs made it into the Venice lineup because the star power was enough to get it here. But Wolfs provides ample evidence that celebrity wattage is not nearly enough, especially when neither star seems particularly invested in being on screen. This is a movie in desperate need of another dimension. Its set pieces are uninspired and lifeless, and the script grinds to a halt every time you think things are about to gain momentum. If you’re still curious about Wolfs, just watch the trailer—it has every “highlight” of the movie in a few digestible minutes.
