Brad Pitt & George Clooneys New Movie Can Fulfil The True Potential Of One Tarantino Story, 30 Years Later

While Quentin Tarantino’s sophomore effort is regarded as a modern classic, Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s new movie Wolfs looks set to explore one of its under-utilized plot lines. Pulp Fiction is famous for its non-linear storytelling style, with director Quentin Tarantino’s offbeat crime epic bouncing between numerous plot lines seemingly at random. This approach makes Pulp Fiction unique before its many imitators, creating a world that feels lived-in despite the limited screen time of its individual cast members. However, the experimental style also means many of Pulp Fiction’s subplots are left under-explored, something an upcoming crime comedy can address.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney are set to share the screen again in 2024’s upcoming action comedy Wolfs, by Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts. Wolfs tells the story of two professional fixers, played by Pitt and Clooney, who butt heads when they are hired to handle the same job. Pitt and Clooney’s new movie reunites the duo after they appeared together in the Ocean’s 11 trilogy, Burn After Reading, and 2002’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. More recently, the pair also had minor supporting roles in director John Krasinski’s fantasy comedy IF.

Wolfs Sounds A Lot Like Part Of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction

Clooney and Pitt’s Fixers Are Seemingly Inspired By Harvey Keitel’s Winston Wolfe

Judging by its full-length trailer, the storyline of Wolfs seems like an extension of the Winston Wolfe/ Jules and Vincent subplot from Pulp Fiction. Not only are Pitt and Clooney’s characters referred to as a pair of lone wolves in the title, but their hyper-slick, stony-faced professional facade also resembles the demeanor of Harvey Keitel’s Winston Wolfe. Winston is a fixer who Vincent and Jules call to clean up a messy crime scene after Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the face while Jules is driving. He plays a minor, but memorable, role in Pulp Fiction’s larger story.

While Pitt and Clooney’s most underrated movie was a crime caper almost as grisly as Pulp Fiction, Wolfs seems lighter in tone than Tarantino’s crime movie. The movie’s trailer makes it clear that Wolfs takes place in a criminal underworld and all the main characters are morally ambiguous career criminals. However, the revelation that the body Clooney and Pitt’s fixers were hired to dispose of is still alive gives Wolfs a more comedic, zanier edge. The trailer implies Austin Abrams’ character, an inexperienced Gen Z drug dealer, causes untold problems for Clooney and Pitt’s mismatched antiheroes.

Wolfs Can Do The Story Even Better Than Pulp Fiction Did

Tarantino’s Movie Had A Lot Of Storylines Fighting For Attention

Winston Wolfe’s Pulp Fiction subplot works well, from the infamously shocking moment that Vincent realizes he has killed Martin to the disarmingly brusque professionalism of Keitel’s fixer. It’s a blackly comedic storyline that gels well with the rest of the movie’s tone, but the plot also receives very little focus thanks to Pulp Fiction’s limited runtime. There are numerous dramatic storylines vying for attention throughout Pulp Fiction, so Wolfe’s vignette inevitably gets lost in the proceedings. In contrast, Wolfs can give the Winston Wolfe role the spotlight it deserves by focusing an entire movie on the messy business of cleaning up.

Although Brad Pitt’s other upcoming movie, an F1 racing drama by Joseph Kosinski, looks comparatively self-serious, the trailer for Wolfs makes it seem like a light-hearted action comedy. There is a lot of gunplay and a plot involving stolen drugs, but the tone looks playful and funny. Pulp Fiction’s Winston Wolfe subplot featured some deadpan laughs, but it was only a minor element of the movie’s grand overarching narrative. In contrast, Wolfs has an opportunity to zero in on two characters modeled after Keitel’s Wolfe by asking what happens when a case gets too messy for even the best fixers.

The Premise of Wolfs Plays With Another Pulp Fiction Plot

The Action Comedy Reverses Tarantino’s Famous Story

In Pulp Fiction, two career criminals accidentally kill an inexperienced drug dealer, resulting in them requiring a fixer’s services. In Wolfs, a pair of career fixers are hired to cover up an inexperienced drug dealer’s accidental killing, only for him to still be alive and the pair to end up babysitting him. In this regard, Pitt’s upcoming movie effectively flips Jules and Vincent’s Pulp Fiction storyline. Wolfs takes Jules and Vincent’s plot and reverses it, beginning with a dead drug dealer and a professional fixer instead of ending with Wolfe taking the mess off their hands.

This subversive approach could allow Watts’ movie to play with Pulp Fiction’s storyline, offering an homage that is different enough to feel original. When Pulp Fiction arrived in 1994, its pop culture-obsessed gangsters were both familiar and new to audiences. They were indebted to the antiheroes of crime movies from earlier decades but had a flip, ironic attitude all of their own. Similarly, Wolfs can allow Brad Pitt and George Clooney to explore a storyline that Quentin Tarantino’s seminal epic left untold.

Wolfs

Director

Jon Watts

Release Date

September 20, 2024

Studio(s)

Apple Studios , Plan B Entertainment , Smokehouse Pictures

Writers

Jon Watts