Film Review – Wolves

It hasn’t been an easy ride for director Bart Freundlich. After making a splash with his debut feature, 1997’s “The Myth of Fingerprints,” the helmer failed to build on his buzz, instead painting himself into a career corner with mainstream flops such as 2004’s “Catch That Kid” and 2009’s “The Rebound,” losing indie cred and professional opportunity over the last two decades. With “Wolves,” Freundlich attempts to merge his love of crowd-pleasing storytelling with art house emotion, making a team sports picture about individuality, digging below surface antics of a dysfunctional family struggling with a monetary nightmare to preserve character, taking his time massaging anxieties and betrayals out of the gifted cast. “Wolves” handles itself like a distant cousin to 1979’s “Breaking Away,” with Freundlich aware of moviegoer needs, yet he offers engrossing dramatic depth to make sure the effort is more than a series of coming-of-age clichés. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com