Movie Nation

Brad Pitt and George Clooney were doing the Hollywood bromance thing long before Ryan and Hugh. And even though they’ve appeared in four films together, the two hunky sixtysomethings were overdue for a “meet cute” action comedy.

That’s what “Wolfs” is, an old-fashioned “buddy picture” starring two real-life pals who meet, as strangers, both of them summoned to “clean” and keep quiet a politically and financially messy death scene in a tony New York hotel “quiet.”

The bickering, bitching, flipping-off and side-eyeing pissing contest they take their characters through is every bit as entertaining as you’d expect. With two Oscars each and years of “Oceans” movies behind them, these two know where the laughs are and bring an effortless cool to their competing “cleaner” characters.

Our writer-director may let “meet cute” tumble into “cutesie” more than one would like, but “Spider-Man” franchise vet Jon Watts folds the fun into an underworld body-disposal thriller with twists, comically cross talk and breathless crosstalk, all of it with an emphasis on “cool.”

“You’re the two coolest guys I ever met” doesn’t need to be said, but it is. It’s the least Watts could do for his stars after he brings in a character played by former child-actor/interloper Austin Abrams ,who all but steals the movie from them.

A tight, mostly dialogue-free opening puts a woman (Amy Ryan) in a $10,000-a-night hotel penthouse with a much younger “man” who’s just met his untimely demise. She recovers her blood-spattered phone — with difficulty — and starts calling. The one number than matters belongs to the guy who picks up.

“There’s only one man in this city who can do what you do,” she says, by way of introduction. Somebody gave her this number for that worst-case-scenario rainy day. And it’s raining, turning to snow, in Manhattan.

“Activate the ‘do not disturb’ light to your room,” he instructs. “You’re not to do ANYthing. You’re not to open the door. Do not call anyone. Do not pour yourself a drink.”

“Cleaners,” Clooney’s cleaner reminds us, “don’t exist.” But Luc Besson had Jean Reno play one in “La Femme Nikita,” Quentin Tarantino borrowed the idea for Harvey Keitel to play in “Pulp Fiction,” and the rest of (mob movie) history.

Rattled and weepy, at least she’s in good hands when the silver fox in a black leather jacket (Clooney) shows up. He’s grabbed a luggage cart from the crowded hotel lobby. He sizes the situation up with a brief interrogation, covering all the tracks. He thinks.

But just as he’s starting to work — plastic bags, etc. — somebody else knocks, uses the passkey and enters. Another hunk in a black leather jacket — this one blonde (Pitt) — has shown up.

Only a call from the all-seeing, all-knowing hotel owner (the voice of Frances McDormand) can clear the air. “Work together,” she orders these two “cleaners.”

“Not how I work” tumbles out of each man, each dismissive of the other. Each sells himself as “There’s nobody who can do do what I do.”

But they finally settle on the pecking order. The “older gentleman” will “take care of your problem.” The blonde one?

“My job is to make sure that you do YOUR job.”

The back-and-forth over methods, technique, loose-ends and the like piles up even as each first voices suspicion that this looks like some elaborate “set-up.”

And that’s before one finds the drugs, before they both realize this kid, “NOT a prostitute” one and all insist (and don’t believe), isn’t dead after all.

Our two mismatched “partners” have to use their instincts, experience, driving skills and physical conditioning to tease-out just what this night is all about, how they can tidy all this up and hopefully survive it in the process.

Abrams, recently seen in “Euphoria” but who dates back to “The In-Betweeners” and “The Kings of Summer,” bursts out of a BMW trunk and onto the scene in tidy whiteys, a not-dead “kid” who has a lot of drugs in his system, a lot of fear in his soul and a lot of adrenalin with which to lead our seasoned “professionals” on a merry chas (with him in in stocking feet) through traffic, an empty mall and a deepening snowfall in the New York night.

Much of the verbal back-and-forth between Pitt and Clooney is amusing. Every word and every gesture Abrams is responsible for is a laugh-out-loud hoot. The way he runs, in those punch-line skivvies, the way he stops, changes direction — SOMEbody was paying attention in mime class.

His motor-mouthed “Get to the IMPORTANT part” recitations of how he got into all this flirt with hilarious. It takes all of the cool and studied contempt Clooney and Pitt can summon up to compete with this antic performance and the goofy mayhem this character leads theirs into.

“Let’s see your technique.”

“I’m not going to show you my technique.”

“You don’t have technique.”

“I show you my technique and you’ll steal it!”

There’s business about “Albanians” and “Croatians” and drug couriers and nonsense about a “man’s word” being “the measure of the man,” a sort of “code” in the underworld and among cleaners in general. Running gags about “He’s NOT a prostitute” and age only carry the movie so far.

But the light and dark and predictably daffy “Wolfs” plays.

It’s a star vehicle that reminds us of why star power still counts for something, even if the comic thriller you park this pairing of Butch and Sundance in has them upstaged by a kid still young enough to be willing to not just wear tidy whiteys, but to run all over New York in them.

Rating: R, violence, drug content, profanity

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan,
Zlatko Buric, Richard Kind and Amy Ryan, with the voice of Frances McDormand.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jon Watts. An Apple release.

Running time: 1:48