Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs
GRADE: B -
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaghey, Kyle Chandler
Screenplay by Terence Winter
Directed by Martin Scorsese
In 1987, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes a stockbroker job at an established Wall street firm.. His boss, played by Matthew McConaghey (still so skinny from Dallas Buyer's Club that he can barely fill out his expensive suit) advises him to adopt a lifestyle of casual sex and cocaine to succeed. But disaster strikes: when Jordan is barely beginning the job, Black Monday hits Wall Street, and the firm is figuratively crushed under the weight of the crash.
With Jordan unemployed in a poor job market for stockbrokers, his wife Teresa encourages him to take a job with a Long Island penny stock outfit. . His aggressive pitching style, combined with the higher commission rate of penny stocks, soon earns him a small fortune. And when a salesman named Donnie (Jonah Hill) living in the same apartment complex sees Jordan's success, he is desperate to hitch himself to this fellow's wagon, and they decide to go into business together. To facilitate this, his accountant parents are recruited as well as several of Jordan's friends, some of them experienced marijuana dealers. Stratton Oakmont Inc. is created. An article in Forbes dubs Jordan the "Wolf of Wall Street", and soon hundreds of ambitious young financiers flock to his company.
A decadent lifestyle of lavish parties, sex and drugs follows. By the 12th orgy scene even the more liberal members of the audience are likely to be feeling a little squeamish, and the film still has two full hours to go. Too much is never enough for Jordan, and he rides the tidal wave of success and debauchery like a man possessed, or at any rate really intent on winning an Oscar. Eventually his many indiscretions begin to catch up with him as an F.B.I. agent (Kyle Chandler) starts investigating the firm, and it's not long before things have spiraled so far out of control that it's likely that our hero couldn't figure a way out even if he was sober for a full half a day.
Director Martin Scorsese can always be counted on to deliver great performances from his actors, and this is no exception. DiCaprio gives a tour de force performance that is as exhilarating as it is painful, and much of the supporting cast does a fine job (McConaghey makes a big impression in his one scene.). Scorsese can also be counted on not to pull any punches, and here he is so determined not to sugar coat or downplay a single moment of decadence that he often looses the story in the midst of all the excess: it's almost as if he becomes so punchy over the fact that the story does not lend itself to graphic violence that he just starts screaming for more drugs and hookers, in much the same way his protagonist does. The brilliant director, whose most recent effort prior to this was the charming classic Hugo, is in over his head almost as far as Jordan Belfort, and he simply can't control this shrill, in your face mess. By the end of the movie I felt like I needed both a shower and a blood transfusion. Which is not to say that there isn't much to admire here: technical skill and clever staging abound, and some of the dialogue is genuinely hilarious. But the most memorable sequence is based largely around physical comedy, as Jordan is caught in a sticky situation as an overdose of Quaaludes leaves him literally unable to stand under his own power just as he learns that he must race home to stop Donnie from making incriminating calls on a phone that has been tapped by the F.B.I. Somehow he manages to crawl to his car, and the ensuing scene, and DiCaprio's incredible performance, mesmerizes you with a combination of horror and hilarity. If the film was able to sustain this level of brilliance throughout, I would have to say that the excessive content is off putting but justified, but in the end, they could have cut an entire hour from this movie and lost literally nothing of importance to the story.
This is easily Scorsese's most disjointed film since Gangs of New York, and while at it's best it soars higher than that tepid, violent melodrama, it is even more difficult to sit through, and unfortunately, just as with that film, you walk out unsure if the film had any particular point to make.
The Wolf of Wall Street is rated R for profanity, nudity, graphic sex, drug use, and violence. Merry Christmas.
With Jordan unemployed in a poor job market for stockbrokers, his wife Teresa encourages him to take a job with a Long Island penny stock outfit. . His aggressive pitching style, combined with the higher commission rate of penny stocks, soon earns him a small fortune. And when a salesman named Donnie (Jonah Hill) living in the same apartment complex sees Jordan's success, he is desperate to hitch himself to this fellow's wagon, and they decide to go into business together. To facilitate this, his accountant parents are recruited as well as several of Jordan's friends, some of them experienced marijuana dealers. Stratton Oakmont Inc. is created. An article in Forbes dubs Jordan the "Wolf of Wall Street", and soon hundreds of ambitious young financiers flock to his company.
A decadent lifestyle of lavish parties, sex and drugs follows. By the 12th orgy scene even the more liberal members of the audience are likely to be feeling a little squeamish, and the film still has two full hours to go. Too much is never enough for Jordan, and he rides the tidal wave of success and debauchery like a man possessed, or at any rate really intent on winning an Oscar. Eventually his many indiscretions begin to catch up with him as an F.B.I. agent (Kyle Chandler) starts investigating the firm, and it's not long before things have spiraled so far out of control that it's likely that our hero couldn't figure a way out even if he was sober for a full half a day.
Director Martin Scorsese can always be counted on to deliver great performances from his actors, and this is no exception. DiCaprio gives a tour de force performance that is as exhilarating as it is painful, and much of the supporting cast does a fine job (McConaghey makes a big impression in his one scene.). Scorsese can also be counted on not to pull any punches, and here he is so determined not to sugar coat or downplay a single moment of decadence that he often looses the story in the midst of all the excess: it's almost as if he becomes so punchy over the fact that the story does not lend itself to graphic violence that he just starts screaming for more drugs and hookers, in much the same way his protagonist does. The brilliant director, whose most recent effort prior to this was the charming classic Hugo, is in over his head almost as far as Jordan Belfort, and he simply can't control this shrill, in your face mess. By the end of the movie I felt like I needed both a shower and a blood transfusion. Which is not to say that there isn't much to admire here: technical skill and clever staging abound, and some of the dialogue is genuinely hilarious. But the most memorable sequence is based largely around physical comedy, as Jordan is caught in a sticky situation as an overdose of Quaaludes leaves him literally unable to stand under his own power just as he learns that he must race home to stop Donnie from making incriminating calls on a phone that has been tapped by the F.B.I. Somehow he manages to crawl to his car, and the ensuing scene, and DiCaprio's incredible performance, mesmerizes you with a combination of horror and hilarity. If the film was able to sustain this level of brilliance throughout, I would have to say that the excessive content is off putting but justified, but in the end, they could have cut an entire hour from this movie and lost literally nothing of importance to the story.
This is easily Scorsese's most disjointed film since Gangs of New York, and while at it's best it soars higher than that tepid, violent melodrama, it is even more difficult to sit through, and unfortunately, just as with that film, you walk out unsure if the film had any particular point to make.
The Wolf of Wall Street is rated R for profanity, nudity, graphic sex, drug use, and violence. Merry Christmas.
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