Plot
When Margaret, a reasonably famous woman takes a young man to her hotel room for a night of intimacy, and he seemingly dies on her, she calls a number in her phone for a ‘fixer’ to help.
When ‘Margaret’s Man’ arrives, he immediately takes control… however what neither of them expected was a second ‘fixer’ to come, hired by Pam the owner of the hotel.
Now ‘Margaret’s Man’ and ‘Pam’s Man’ have to get rid of the body… and the bag full of drugs that was in the room.
But when the boy wakes up, their night is about to get a whole lot more interesting!
Director
Directed by Jon Watts, who is primarily known for his work in the Marvel Universe’s Spiderman Trilogy with Tom Holland.
Cast
The film stars global superstars George Clooney and Brad Pitt as “Margaret’s Man” and “Pam’s Man” respectively. They bring about all their usual charm, and play off each other well – having clearly been friends for decades, and made half a dozen films together.
Also starring in the film are Austin Abrams as ‘the kid’, Poorna Jagannathan as June, Zlatko Buric as Dimitri.
In small roles are Amy Ryan as Margaret, Richard Kind as ‘the kids dad’ and Frances McDormand as Pam (voice only).
Breakdown
Starting immediately after ‘the incident’ – we meet a middle aged woman who has a seemingly dead (much younger, and not a prostitute) man in her apartment. He died following a fall off the bed and hitting a table.
She calls a phone number in her phone – having received it from someone she trusts greatly – who trusts the contact.
The man arrives, and immediately takes charge. This then escalate when a second man arrives – having been called by the ‘eye in the sky’ the hotel manager Pam (voiced by Frances McDormand – appearing off screen – and having less that three minutes of ‘screen time).
The woman, and the two men (who go unnamed – we learn later that the woman is Margaret and is a DA within the city) are now all on film – and must play along in keeping the hotel safe – as well as their respective employers.
The ‘simple’ clean up job of the dead body goes south when several unlucky progression of issues occur. First, they discover the ‘kid’ (who also goes unnamed throughout the film) has a bag full of hundreds of thousands of dollars of heroin in the room, and secondly – the kid was never dead (but OD’ing).
This leads to a hilarious chase through the city once he’s been revived by a doctor who knows both ‘Margaret’s man and “Pam’s man”. This chase ‘does’ go on for a little long, and has some ‘trying to be funny’ moments like when Margaret’s man hits him with a car, and Pam’s man watches in slow motions. The direction overall is fine, but there didn’t really seem to be anything ‘extraordinary’ from it.
From there the ‘clean up’ job now becomes a drug running job, where the narrative takes a different turn. It is still funny, and has some great banter moments between Clooney and Pitt – whose characters have just met, but have a chemistry about them that makes ‘the kid’ think they have been partners for years. This is obviously helped by the pairs decades long friendship off screen. I found the inclusion of the ‘aging’ jokes funny too, as they both clearly are ‘old’ pros – who now require advil for their bad backs. Lift with your legs!
This whole runner/arc where they have to ‘get the pager, find the drop point, that leads to a so so gun fight near the end should have been better, but it feels drawn out, and I just expected more.
The final few moments of the film – which reveal that the men (still unnamed) were essentially sent to this assignment to die by their employer (who is the same person?) and leaves an open ended final in a not seen shoot out… make no sense… why were they sent to die? How in clearly decades doing this job had they never met or known about each other? Surely they are important to keep around? Just too many why’s and not enough hows….
Overall
A good start to the film, with a fun premise – falls apart with a lengthy arc that doesn’t go where it should.
Too many unanswered questions, that leave the whole film unresolved, at at time doesn’t make much sense.
Great banter and chemistry by Pitt and Clooney save this from a lower score, and with anyone else in front of the camera, it just wouldn’t work.
It is fun, but may leave you frustrated by the end.
3.5/5
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