Parents' Guide to Wolfs

Writer-director Jon Watts' great idea to reunite Pitt and Clooney on-screen is a movie lover's dream—and a great night at the movies. The two men hum in synchronicity, providing action, thrills, winks, and laughs with the charismatic confidence that only movie stars of the highest caliber seem to be able to deliver with such ease. Viewers are the beneficiaries of Watts' astute realization: Real-life buddies Clooney and Pitt have acted together before only in chaotic ensembles, like the Ocean's Eleven movies and one scene in Burn After Reading. Bringing them together as rivals, with their larger-than-life presences filling the screen in nearly every scene as they razz each other, is tons of fun.

Of Wolfs' many Easter eggs, there's one scene that seems particularly meant to evoke familiarity: when the two stars sit across from each other in a diner. Do you think of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta from Pulp Fiction? Or Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat? Either way, that's a 100 on the intentionality scale. It is worth noting that while Watts solidifies here that Pitt and Clooney are a duo on par with Robert Redford and Paul Newman or Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, somehow, Austin Abrams steals the show as a goofy, sweet, well-intentioned but misguided college student caught up in the fray. That said, Clooney and Pitt aren't passing the torch quite yet (yes, you can likely expect a sequel).