''Wolves'' is a 2016 American

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

written and directed by

Bart Freundlich Bartholomew Freundlich (born January 17, 1970) is an American film director, television director, screenwriter, and film producer. Early life Freundlich was born and raised in Manhattan, the son of Debbie, a marketing consultant, and Larry Freu ...

and starring

Michael Shannon Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor, producer, musician, and theater director. He is an off beat actor known for his on-screen versatility, performing in both comedies and dramas. He became known for his frequent ...

Carla Gugino Carla Gugino (; born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. After appearing in ''Troop Beverly Hills'' (1989) and ''This Boy's Life'' (1993), she received recognition for her starring roles as Ingrid Cortez in the ''Spy Kids'' trilogy (2001� ...

Taylor John Smith Taylor John Smith (born May 13, 1995) is an American actor. He is known for his role as John Keene in the series ''Sharp Objects (miniseries), Sharp Objects''. Notable films in which he has appeared are ''Wolves (2016 film), Wolves'' (2016), ''You ...

Chris Bauer Mark Christopher Bauer (born October 28, 1966) is an American actor. He is best known for his television work in ''The Wire'', ''Third Watch'', ''True Blood'', ''Survivor's Remorse,'' '' The Deuce and'' the Apple TV+ original science fiction spac ...

and

John Douglas Thompson John Douglas Thompson (born 1964) is an English-American actor. He is a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of two Drama Desk Awards, two Obie Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award. ''The New York Times'' critic B ...

. The film was released on March 3, 2017, by

IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its S ...

Plot

Anthony is a standout player on his Manhattan high school's basketball team with seemingly everything going for him: a killer three-point shot, a loving girlfriend, and a chance at a scholarship to Cornell. But Anthony's dreams of playing college ball are jeopardized by his volatile father, a hard-drinking writer whose compulsive gambling threatens to derail the lives of both his wife and son.

Cast

as Lee Keller *

as Jenny Keller *

as Anthony Keller *

as Charlie *

as Socrates *

Zazie Beetz Zazie Olivia Beetz ( ; ; born June 1, 1991) is a American actress. She stars in the FX comedy-drama series ''Atlanta'' (2016–22), for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy ...

as Victoria *

Jessica Rothe Jessica Ann Rothenberg (born May 28, 1987), better known as Jessica Rothe (), is an American actress. She is known for her role in the MTV comedy series '' Mary + Jane'' (2016) and her lead role as Tree Gelbman in the comedy slasher film ''Happy D ...

as Lola *

Wayne Duvall Wayne Duvall (born May 29, 1958) is an American actor known for appearing as Homer Stokes in ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'', as well recurring roles as the television series ''Billions'', ''The District'', ''The Leftovers'', '' BrainDead'', ''The ...

as Coach Ray *

Danny Hoch Daniel Hoch (born November 23, 1970) is an American actor, writer, director and performance artist. He has acted in larger roles in independent and art house movies and had a few small roles in mainstream Hollywood films, with increasing expo ...

as Sean * Noah Le Gros as Oliver * Christopher Meyer as Hakim * Richard Kohnke as Billy Dunn * Harry Thomas as Finals Referee

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began in June 2015.

Release

The film premiered at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

on April 15, 2016. The film was released on March 3, 2017, by

Reception

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 36% based on 25 reviews, and an average rating of 4.8/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * 2016 films 2010s sports drama films American sports drama films Films directed by Bart Freundlich 2016 drama films Films about gambling 2016 independent films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{2010s-drama-film-stub