The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal. Jon Favreau and Jean Dujardin.
SYNOPSIS:
Based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort, depicting his rise to wealthy, debauched stockbroker and his fall to drug addict and federal prisoner.
Throughout The Wolf of Wall Street our narrator, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), will break the Fourth Wall and begin explaining some of the complexities of the law breaking he and his cohorts are engaging in to make their millions, only to tell us that we don’t care about things like this and all we need to know is it made him a lot of money. And he’s right. We don’t care about the nuances of the transactions; we’re there for the hookers, drugs, beautiful women and midget tossing just like everyone else.
The Wolf of Wall Street is a frenetically paced film, never stopping whilst moving from ridiculous scene to the next. I think Scorsese’s true achievement with this film is giving us a film that is about boring, white collar crime and keeping us totally captivated by not making the crime itself the focus, but the life that Belfort and his gang of ex-weed dealers and children’s furniture salesman – Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) – the main focus of the film. This prevents us from truly disliking these clearly horrendous characters who have little care for the people whose money they take, with Belfort remarking “I know how to spend it better than them”.
The film is funny and exciting, with ridiculous act after ridiculous act being carried out, far beyond the imagination or scope of the majority of its audience. From the hot wax dominatrix, to an excellent couple of scenes involving Belfort and Azoff’s use of some extremely potent ‘Ludes’, it continues to amaze with the lengths and imaginations of those who have more money than they know what to do with.
It’s also interesting seeing how Belfort turns all the most tangible things in his life into a commodity. He names his yacht after his wife and shows more love and admiration for it than its namesake. One of his employees declares that she loves him, not for his skills or his personality- but for the $25,000 dollar check he gave her when she started.
The true strength of The Wolf of Wall Street lies in its performances. DiCaprio looks incredibly comfortable and as if he’s enjoying himself more than ever; coming across as so charismatic and charming that, despite his many and admitted flaws, we never hate Jordan Belfort. This is a true achievement considering the political climate and vilification in the press of the bankers who contributed to the most recent global economic crash. The film never shows him feeling any remorse for his actions whatsoever, nor do we see him facing any true consequences for them other than 3 years doing a seemingly comfortable prison stint. He is even looked upon with adulation after he’s out and doing sales seminars.
Jonah Hill and Matthew McConaughey both put in good performances as well, with Hill’s transition from fat, nerdy loser to Belfort’s fat, nerdy right hand man being particularly interesting as his arrogance and ego both sky rocket with his success, possibly even more than that of Belfort, who appears that way almost from the off.
Scorsese does an excellent job with his direction and keeps the pacing so that despite the 3 hour running time; the film never truly drags or feels like it could hit a lull. The fact that this still doesn’t make it close to the top of the list on ‘Best ever Scorsese films’ says a lot more about the man than the movie. The Wolf of Wall Street shows us that greed may not be good, but it can make an entertaining and hilarious movie.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Matt Spencer-Skeen
Originally published January 19, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
