THE WOLF of WALL STREET  2.5***

 

 

          If you've seen Martin Scorsese’s “The Goodfellas” or “Casino”, then you'll better understand the “The Wolf of Wall Street”. This is another tale of a criminal whose ambitions sweep him away into a debauched world of dirty money and sex, out-of-control substance abuse, endless lies, a troubled family life, and a downward spiral of corruption that inevitably leads to his own undoing.  Based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort - the real-life stock broker who made millions by selling shoddy stocks to average Joes - the film showcases one seriously messed-up slimeball of a man. The film maintains a close and intimate focus on the man as he rises to power, suckers thousands into his schemes, and then lives a life of extreme excess. And it is extreme: the whole film becomes laden with drugs, sex, superficial luxuries, material things, and characters who want nothing more than to take and consume everything. The sheer corruption becomes almost unbearable. I understand that the excesses are supposed to show the danger of an out-of-control American dream but here the excesses are way too much and too often repeated.

 

Before I go any further , and talking about excesses, this movie unbelievably got an “R”’ rating.. it should have been “NC-17” or  “X”. There are many, many sequences with strong sexual content (often involving intercourse, masturbation and “the Monica Lewinsky” ), graphic nudity (full frontal female nudity and almost the same for the males), considerable drug use of all kinds( especially cocaine) and  heavy, continuous profanity throughout (it set a new record ( 506 times) for the use of the “F” word or derivatives). So, if you go, you go forewarned.

 

I didn't like Wolf of Wall Street for a number of reasons. It was very repetitive and ultimately boring.  The film is way too long (3 hrs), with more than a dozen scenes that could have been eliminated because they didn’t add anything to the story flow.  Way too much. Sex.....tons of it. This film is pretty well soft porn…. but it is also about as sexually exciting as watching a Zamboni polish an ice rink and about as cold. Drugs.....tons of it. Think of “Scarface” levels. Vulgarity....way worse than” Bridesmaids” and much less humorous. The movie had a bit of humor, especially towards the end, but the characters were not developed and many chances to deepen the movie were missed.  

 

There were some really good scenes:, the entire crawling sequence was a master-work along with the food choking part; his first encounter with the FBI on his yacht, especially him throwing the lobsters; his relationship with his employees;  the showdown between him and his second “trophy” wife, and the way it gets physical and cold; the training sessions with his first group of employees; and when he’s  arrested by the FBI.. Also, the acting of Leonardo DiCaprio is not in question here; nor, for that matter, are the performances of his supporting cast, most notably Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie, who play his business partner and second wife, respectively. Strong performances abound by those three  and others as well. In the case of DiCaprio, one could argue that this could be one of the top movie portrayals of his career. He probably will be nominated for Oscar’s Best Acting award.

As you can tell I did not like this movie but nor did I hate it. I wanted to like it but the negatives outweighed the fine acting.

Clark