Wolf

Plot synopsis:
Will Randall (Jack Nicholson) is bitten by a wolf while driving home in Vermont. Afterwards, he is demoted from editor in chief of a publishing house when it is taken over by tycoon Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer), who replaces him with Will's protegé Stewart Swinton (James Spader). Stewart is having an affair with Will's wife Charlotte (Kate Nelligan). Will starts to be more aggressive, taking on the characteristics of a wolf.With the help of Alden's headstrong daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer), Will sets out for his new life. His first escapade as a werewolf takes place at Laura's estate, where he wakes up at night and hunts down a deer. In the morning Will finds himself on the bank of a stream, with blood all over his face and hands.He visits Dr. Vijav Alezais (Om Puri), who gives him an amulet to protect him from turning completely into a wolf. Alezais asks Will to bite him, as Alezais does not have long to live, and would prefer "demonization to death." After refusing, Randall keeps the amulet so that he won't transform at the next full moon. Calling Laura to explain, Randall, now a wolf, breaks into the Zoo and steals handcuffs from a policeman. Muggers want his wallet, but he attacks and leaves one of them alive. He wakes up in his hotel, with no memory of what happened.Will outmanoeuvres Stewart at their work and fires him, urinating on his shoes in a bathroom. While washing his hands, he finds fingers in his handkerchief and realizes he killed someone. Will inadvertently bites Stewart, who then becomes a wolf and murders Charlotte. Stewart attempts to frame Will in order to seize his job back.Horrified that he might have killed his wife, Will goes back to Laura`s cottage and is locked up in the barn. Laura gets a call from a Detective (Richard Jenkins), who tells her that canine DNA was found on Charlotte's body. Alarmed, Laura goes to the police station. There she runs into Stewart, who makes an animal-like pass at her. Laura hurries away, making arrangements for her and Will to leave the country.Stewart follows her and kills her two guards. After a brief struggle in the barn, Stewart tries to rape her, but Will frees himself and they fight. Stewart is shot to death by Laura. After he returns to normal, Will has a brief moment with Laura and then runs into the forest.Minutes later, Laura shows heightened senses when the police arrive, telling the detective that she can smell vodka on his breath. The final scene is a close-up of her face fading into dark, lupine eyes, and a close up of Will completing his transformation into a full werewolf.

Tags: comedy, gothic, murder, cult, satire, revenge

Review:
Ever since the 1940s, filmmakers attempting to make a new monster film, in the vein of the classics Dracula or The Wolf Man are often saddled with the contempt or disbelief provoked in response by contemporary audiences, leaving the end result either comedic or a camp attempt at a thriller incapable of being taken seriously or enjoyed by anyone other than caffeine riddled thirteen year olds.
The casting of Jack Nicholson as a modern day werewolf may have immediately come across as a very mixed blessing, inciting excitement that such an iconic actor was taking a shot at a part which seemed tailor made for him, and fear that Nicholson might simply coast by on the premise, and indulge in his tendency to drift over the top to the point of pantomime, effectively ruining the intent of the film.
Michelle Pfeiffer gives a tremendously charismatic and entirely believable performance as Nicholson's surprisingly well written love interest - rather than being reduced to screaming and floundering around, Pfeiffer injects her character with real human emotions, taking what could have been a routine romantic lead and nearly stealing the film in one of the most impressive performances in her career.
Wolf makes a wonderful modern take on the Wolf Man classic right down to the facial prosthetics, and is easily worth seeing for any fans of the genre in the mood for a horror film which refuses to patronise its audience - a very refreshing change.
The story perfectly combines drama, horror and romance, with Michelle Pfeiffer very beautiful and a great dispute among the characters performed by Jack Nicholson, James Spader and Christopher Plummer.
It is different as a horror movie, because it really isn't a horror movie - and yet here we have a man turning into a wolf, he starts killing people at night, and we have the rabid horror music stalking our ears when the wolf is on the prowl.I like the characters, I like the slow pace and the calm moments and I especially like Jack Nicholson when Randall's senses start to come alive.
Pfeiffer makes a tough, proactive heroine, and gets a much better part than you'd expect for a woman in a horror film (horror is very much a boy's genre, I'm afraid).I'm going to get snooty here and suggest that most people just don't understand "Wolf," probably because its ideal audience is quite small.
The acting is very good with James Spader oozing sleaziness with every single look, Michelle Pfieffer playing a hardened woman, and Jack Nicholson being, well, Jack Nicholson, but hairier.The opening sequence grabs you straight away, stock shocks, but they work fantastically, from then on I found myself impressed on just about every following scene.Nicholson is very good at underplaying the beginning of his transformation as he starts to discover his newly heightened senses, but he comes into his own when his powers bring him new found confidence and self assurance.Some of the wolf effects are a little cheesy, and the appearance of David Schwimmer playing a cop caused me to flash into Friends mode - he even has a friends-like line, could he _be_ anymore Ross like?
The combination of quick and slow zooms, along with expansive cuts of open spaces make the 125 minute story both rhythmic and engrossing.WOLF is not the conventional werewolf movie we're accustomed to seeing, as the film is meant to induce a snicker as opposed to a scream.
In this respect, James Spader upstages Jack Nicholson and almost steals the show.Still, there's all the good stuff that comes with werewolf movies.
For all those horror fans out there, the make-up team did a superb job, no doubt influenced by the disjointed transformations of the original black and white wolf-man classic.As a telltale sign of the film's sophistication, the werewolf theme is dramatically eclipsed by the true storyline – Nicholson's over-the-hill struggles in the publishing business.
The development of Michelle Pfiffer's character in the movie was an open question mark.The Pfiffer-Nicholson love story culminates in WOLF's unique ending.
Along the way he meets a mysterious and interesting woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and seeks the advice of an alternative healer (Om Puri.) This movie is not terribly scary or really very horrifying, it portrays the wolf as being like mankind, "...evil if the person who is bitten is evil..." And in the dog-eat-dog world of business, really speaks about the urban jungle that is work and business every day.
Jack Nicholson stars as Will Randall a meek book editor whose life suddenly is thrown into turmoil when he is bitten by a wolf while driving home from a business meeting.
Grisly horror , thrills and chills in this enjoyable terror film starred by an excellent protagonist trio, Jack Nicholson , Michelle Pfeiffer and James Spader .
Publisher Will Randall (Jack Nicholson) suffers a car accident when is attacked by a wolf as he has turned into a werewolf .
Meanwhile , Randall is accused for his wife's (Kate Nelligan) death and fall in love with the gorgeous daughter (Michelle Pfeiffer , though Mia Farrow was slated to play her and Sharon Stone turned down the female lead) of his shrewd boss (Christopher Pummer) .This exciting chiller displays thriller , drama , action , suspense, terror , werewolves fights , a love story with mysterious touches and turns out quite entertaining .
Good performances from Jack Nicholson as a notorious publisher who is bitten by a werewolf and becomes one himself and the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer along with James Spader .
Rousing musical score by the great Ennio Morricone who composes a sensitive as well as thrilling soundtrack ; however John Williams was originally attached to compose the music for this film .This big budget motion picture was well directed by Mike Nichols (The graduate , Catch 22, Silkwood , Working girl , Regarding Henry , Closer) , though release was delayed for 6 to 8 months to re-shoot the entire third act .
This movie seems to pay tribute to classic werewolf films such as "The Wolf Man" with its basic formula of: Normal man, man bitten, man realizes something wrong, man discovers cool abilities, man uses abilities, man's abilities become out of control, man seeks help, man gets mystical amulet, man seeks resolution.
A howling good werewolf movie, with Jack Nicholson as The Child of the Night.
In Mike Nichols' enchanted 1994 movie, Wolf, we meet a failing book editor, Jack Nicholson, who, sorry to say, would rather purr than bark.
In his case, Nicholson has two creatures to deal with: the jackal- like James Spader, as vicious and as smiling a villain as one might find in a Grimm's fairy tale or an MBA executive program, and the nightmarish Christopher Plummer, the nastiest and most treacherous boss since Genghis Khan, the sort of corpse-eating, bone-crunching sneak who gives hyenas a bad name.
Both actors are at the top of their game, and it's a delight to watch them work their nastiness.Fortunately for the Nicholson character, he gets bitten by a werewolf, and we all know what that means, kiddies.Like one of Jack London's canines on the prowl: "He became quicker of movement...
A wolf-man needs to make time for fun, like one of Jack London's animal heroes: "But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called -- called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come." As you might expect, evening is chow-down time in the Big Apple.
Glorious special effects, great ensemble acting, and laugh-out-loud wit – the sort of insightful and caustic comments that over the years Mike Nichols rewarded us with, like so many jalapeño-flavored candy bars -- make Wolf an engaging fable for grownups ...
Will Randall(Jack Nicholson)is your every day nice guy, who does'nt seem throw many punches, his best friend and coworker Stuart Swinton(James Spader) steals his job Has Senior Publisher, and his wife Charlotte(Kate Nelligan) is cheating on him.
Way up there in my own personal top 50 films of all time I could never tire of watching this film and LISTENING..and this word is the key.HEARING becomes an intrinsic part of Nicholson's transformation after he is bitten by a wolf on his way home one night in upstate New York.
The washroom scene where Nicholson announces simply "Just marking out my territory" was worth seeing alone!Many have complained bitterly that the finale descends into a "typical b-grade werewolf movie." Jeez, they ARE WEREWOLVES for God's sake what did you expect Nichols to come up with?
I guess people would also be disappointed in 'The Godfather' if they watched it expecting a 'Die Hard'.The movie creates an atmosphere that is lacking in many modern horrors, and has a decent werewolf fight scene, but that's it; all in all, the drama is prevalent throughout the film.
The werewolf aspect is subtly done in changes of his personality; he becomes more cunning, using dirty tricks in order to keep himself on power, becomes more possessive/attentive to everything and more lusty (acting on his attraction to Michelle Pfeiffer).The movie is perfectly directed.
James Spader, too, really shines as Nicholson's machiavellian antagonist.Complete with an Ennio Morricone music, very good make-up for the transformed wolfmen, and a somewhat unique ending, this is one great hidden gem of a movie.
The rest of them absolutely bore me to tears, as do most horror movies.Jack is great but Michelle Pfeiffer is even better.
It seems that directors want to put Jack Nicholson in a movie because he knows how to look weird and expecting some sort of real magic to happen.
Werewolf movies all generally tend to suck from a technical point, and frankly I can't believe anyone is commenting good or bad, when you consider, the trainwreck of a screenplay, along with the usual mediocre performances of Pheiffer and Spader.
Not that he's doing a bad job as editor-in-chief of a prominent New York publisher, just that he shows no guts.After being bitten by a wolf one night, he begins to notice slight changes in his appearance and his character.
And after sloughing off his unfaithful wife, he meets and mates with the boss's lovely daughter (Michelle Pfeiffer), who looks half feral on her own.The scheming and exploration of Nicholson's new personality are the best-written part of the movie.
Somebody -- I forget who -- has also bitten Pfeiffer, which is understandable, and then she begins to morph into a wolf and leaves to join Nicholson in the woods where, presumably, they will live happily ever after and produce litter after litter of pups doggy-style.I can't help it if the second half of the movie sounds a little nutty.
**SPOILERS** After hitting a wolf, the first one seen in the wild in the state of Vermont since 1900, with his car on his way driving home to New York City publishing house vice president a concerned Will Randell, Jack Nicholson, tries to see what he could do to help the injured canine.
It has a slow, building drama in its orchestral sound, but the effect is interrupted, once again like mud on the sparkling surface, by a jittering synthesized sound reminiscent of the sounds made by the gadgets and gizmos in a mad scientist's lab on a really bad old sci-fi film.Christopher Plummer, another fine British actor whose American accent is impeccable, Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays herself and plays her well, and James Spader, a brilliantly drunk-with-pride villain, all add a little.
We witness him outsmarting a phony co-worker (JAMES SPADER, who seems to specialize in being nasty), and watch how he manipulates his boss (CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER) with his new skills.It's a fascinating idea but doesn't get full development in the screenplay once the wolf has made its mark on Nicholson.
Leave it to Mike Nichols to put a new spin on werewolf movies (as it was, when we first watched "Wolf", we didn't know that Nichols was the director; when his name appeared, my parents explained that he did "The Graduate").
Utterly bizarre in that it seems to want to mix boardroom politics with cheap horror stunts to the point that you wonder if you are not watching two separate films side-by-side!Michael Pfeiffer plays the big bad publishers daughter and this being a movie she naturally finds balding late middle aged Jack irresistible.
Jack Nicholson plays a middle-aged book publisher, bitten by a wolf during the full moon, who undergoes a physical and psychological transformation just as his life seems to be falling apart around him.
Some scenes are better than others, but overall, Wolf is too torpid to be a good movie.From the start Jack Nicholson feels out of place, but he is not at his worst.
But in the end, it was just terrible.Jack Nicholson plays Will Randall, a Manhattan publisher who, while on the road one night in New England (which leads to many others always asking "New England?" when he explains what happened) hits a wolf.
He keeps jerking his knees, turning the movie into a dog and pony show (think of the horses in Pfeiffer's stable) by relying on Rick Baker's makeup work and not concentrating on the human drama of Nicholson's character becoming more predatory and animalistic and less professional.There should have been more scenes of Jack stealing roast beef off his secretary's sandwich and less gore.
Granted, there are many werewolf films and similar movies of the horror genre that are much less thoughtful with even worse writing, but that certainly does not mean that since this one is better that it is good.The only thing that saves this movie is the acting.
In addition, leads Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer make a surprisingly effective pair and work well together despite the improbable age difference between the two, while the supporting cast is strong all the way through.
Much like Will Randall (Jack Nicholson), Wolf seems very reluctant to just accept the fact that it's a werewolf movie.
More intelligent than most horror movies, it delivers with great performances by Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer..
Wolf starring Jack Nicholson is a good movie and contains some pretty awesome sequences.
Jack steals the show again with a great supporting cast of James Spader, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Plummer and many more in this great werewolf movie that offers horror and romance.
Jack Nicholson stars as Will Randall a book editor on his way back home when he runs over an animal, little does Will know when he goes to check the animal, it is a wolf and it bites him.
It certainly may not be the most popular werewolf movie of all time for many fans but I certainly find it a thrill to watch and the great chosen cast make that happen with a equally good music score form Ennio Morricone and excellent make up effects from Rick Baker.
Spader is a naturally creepy antagonist who is easy to fear and hate, and Pfeiffer is as good a choice for her role as Nicholson is for his role - intense, powerful, and with a sense of danger.I watch a ton of movies and own around 1,500 of them, and I rarely give top ratings for anything but Wolf is in a class by itself.
This is one of the top werewolf movies that I would recommend to people, it's just a fun flick to watch and if you are a fan of Jack, Michelle, or James, I know you will fall in love with it.7/10.
There is a romantic subplot between Randall and the boss's daughter, Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer), and another subplot where a crime happens, but it goes almost unnoticed and is never well developed, just a hook for the end.Jack Nicholson does an OK work, using well his physical resemblance to a werewolf, but his transformation is common and special effects are so basic that even my grandmother would do better.
You'll get some cool werewolf action, but that is not really the driving point of the film.However, if you're into dramas with James Spader and the ferocious (even without lycanthropy) Nicholson, you found a good one.
Jack Nicholson does a great job as a man who is turning into a wolf.
A werewolf movie starring Jack Nicholson?
James Spader is good is the slimy villain of the story, and Michelle Pfeiffer is her usual confident femme fatale character.Though it may not be everyone's cup of tea, Wolf is a smart, fairly enjoyable twist on the werewolf genre..
Jack Nicholson plays an editor named William Randall who kind of lets people walk all over him, and when he gets bitten by a wolf on a lonely road one night, he becomes an entirely different person.
Wolf was a fine horror film for Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer.
James Spader is Nicholson's protégé, Michelle Pfeiffer is Plummer's daughter who takes a shine to Jack.
"Wolf" by director Mike Nichols can best be described as a werewolf movie for a mature and adult audience.
And the director also managed to pull off an entertaining movie without resorting to gore, visual transformation into a werewolf and of course without young men running around without shirts.The story told in this 1994 movie is about Will Randall (played by Jack Nicholson), an aging publisher who finds himself bitten on the hand by a wolf that he accidentally hit with his car.
This is not your typical werewolf flick, where out of luck publisher Will Randall (Jack Nicholson) has to deal with younger co-worker Stewart Swinton (James Spader), who snatches away both his job and wife.
Released during the early summer of 1994, "Wolf" is an interesting werewolf tale about a an aging editor-in-chief of a publishing house in New York City -- Will Randall, played by Jack Nicholson.
Also, don't expect the grotesque transformations of those films and others, like "An American Werewolf in London" and "The Howling" because "Wolf" plays that down.