The Wolf of Wall Street

The last few Scorsese pics left me a little disappointed. I had begun to think Marty had become a 'gun for hire' and that his brilliance may have been spent (his earlier works were some of the best movies ever made). I attended a screening of The Wolf of Wall Street this evening, and was expecting to be unimpressed. I am happy to say I was completely blown away. This pic is Marty at his best. I laughed, I cringed, I related (with fond memories as well as a bit of guilt) and I TOTALLY believed every unbelievable moment. A good book, a great screenplay and a delightful cast were formed and molded into what I believe should get Scorsese a best director Oscar, and likely a Best Picture Award for the movie. Leo DiCaprio has grown into a versatile actor and his creation of this super hero dirtbag's roller coaster ride in this crazy (true) story is really honest and delightfully entertaining. Jonah Hill pulled out all the stops too and this is definitely his best work. Thank you Mr. Scorsese for delivering the goods so brilliantly!

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

**** (out of 4)

Two word review: A Masterpice.

Martin Scorsese's latest film is yet another brilliant one with Leonard DiCaprio turning in the greatest performance of his career as stockbroker Jordan Belfort who takes some rather bland people and turn them into one of the biggest scams that the FBI ever saw. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is going to make many people unhappy and there are many more who are probably going to be offended by it but the perfection that is Scorsese was right when he decided to turn this into a comedy instead of a drama. Yeah, it's GOODFELLAS on speed and ramped up sex but it's just so brilliantly and wickedly funny that you can't help but laugh at all the craziness going on. Yes, there are some moral police out there who are going to object to a movie being made about a man who ripped off poor people but I'm sorry, I like the fact that this film doesn't really care about those people and instead just gives us an in-your-face look at these wild people, their wild drugs and their wild sex lives. This film is certainly over-the-top in regards to the excess but so were the characters so I thought they just went hand and hand with each other. Scorsese was the perfect person for this project because of his ramped up speed but here is goes all out and really delivers an incredibly wicked little ride that will have you smiling and laughing at some very questionable things.

I've been a fan of DiCaprio long before he became famous and this here is without question the greatest performance he's given so far. I was curious to see how he would do playing someone crazy and wild like this but he does so perfectly and I'd say it was a flawless performance. No matter what was going on in this crazy life you believe that you're watching a real character and as his character says throughout the film, sell him something. Well, DiCaprio sells this performance and role like no one else could. The supporting players are just as wonderful with Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, Matthew McConaughey and Jean Dujardin all delivering terrific performances. The cinematography, the music selections and everything else are just flawless here. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET could have been a complete disaster in so many ways but the strong screenplay and Scorsese's wicked direction makes it an incredibly entertaining film that works so well. It's hard to fully put into words what Scorsese and DiCaprio have pulled off but it's certainly one of the best and most memorable comedies in ages.

Yes, Scorsese has always entertained us so well with abberant types, from mobsters to street criminals to boiler room stock brokers, all dealing death or financial destruction 24/7. But, do any of them bear even a faint resemblance to what really happened, and did those people actually behave that way? Regarding this film, I worked on Wall Street during that time, and even though we had heard of Jordan Belfort's firm, it was totally discounted as a boiler room and had no Street cred at all, just a terrible rep as sleazebag junk. It was no more than a side story to the real Wall Street, as those boiler room types were the lowest level of that era's greed-is-good WS slicksters.

But, the movie.....could any human superman take the amount of drugs and unprotected sex shown in this story and even function, let alone at a high continuous level and not have a fatal heart attack? None that I have known or seen, and I have seen a lot. But, Dicaprio as Belfort was a marvelous choice for this outsized role, and he played it to the hilt as never before, with Jonah Hill as his sidekick comic relief, and Matthew Macconaughey a great choice for Belfort's oddball, probably whacked out(off?)mentor, and Bob DeNiro in a short mobster spot.

It was such fast action that the 3 hours went by quickly, with not a dull moment in it. I enjoyed the fantasy ride that Disney could not have done better, but I could never get past the fact that it was 99% dramatized fiction, done to sell tickets(greed is good!) but not to enlighten us at all about the real Wall Street of that era.

The movie Leonardo DiCaprio should have gotten an Oscar for. His portrayal of the character is perfect. The movie is well-written, leaving no details out of the original story. Martin Scorsese never fails to impress. One of the only example where the movie is better than the book. The movie never gets boring, I could watch this anytime.

It's no surprise that Scorsese is associated with the gangster genre with films such as The Departed, Goodfellas and Casino, of which the last two are possibly the best pure examples of the genre. In Goodfellas the gangsters are dangerous but they operate on a more underground level, in Casino they practically run a major city and can do whatever they like. The gangsters were and will always be a part in America's system. Now, the gangsters are not just accepted by the system, but are considered to be an integral part of it. In the first two films, the gangster is threatening and dangerous, but avoidable. In The Wolf of Wall Street, he's calling to hustle you at home and you don't even know it. Some people view The Wolf of Wall Street as a glorification of Jordan Belfort's lifestyle and want to be like him, as Scorsese portrays this life by its nature, enticing. That's the way it works, and it's impossible to portray it accurately without showing how a charismatic man like Belfort can suck an unsuspecting person into a world of money and fame. The film though, shows us just how empty and destructive that life can be.

There is an undeniable similarity between the instantaneous joy, energy and euphoria that we have while watching The Wolf of Wall Street and how Jordan Belfort lives his life, this is a movie where the director skillfully mixes form and content to create an experience which is as hyper and as instantly ecstatic as the life of its flashy and opportunistic characters.

The direction by Martin Scorsese which still has infectious energy and power is impeccable, there is no other director who has mastered pacing like he has. This is a three-hour movie that moves lightning fast and always manages to keep the audience invested in the story throughout the whole duration. Each scene is packed with so much visual information, and it is fast paced and quickly edited, which complements the general tone of the film. The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto is gorgeous as well and displays an optimal color palette throughout the whole film. Each shot also looks precise, even during some of the more chaotic scenes.

The script is fantastic, filled with many great and memorable lines of dialogue. Every character has a well-defined arc and motives, and the story is given proper breathing room to blossom. The performances are also exquisite, especially Leonardo DiCaprio who gives one of the best performances of his career and portrays the opportunistic nature of Jordan Belfort's character with great commitment as you can see a lustful, hedonistic and impulsive sex & drug-addict man who only wants to have more fun. Supporting him with equal passion is Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff, Belfort's sidekick, and even he manages to make a mark of his own. Margot Robbie plays Naomi, Belfort's second wife and she does an alluring job in her given role. Matthew McConaughey is in for a very short duration as Mark Hanna, Belfort's mentor, but even in that little time, he is the show-stealer and he dominates the screen unlike anyone else.

Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter set out to create a film about the Wall Street excess, and by definition, it contains an excessive amount of everything, such as cursing, sex, nudity, drugs, alcohol and partying. But the film is not really about those things. The story of The Wolf of Wall Street boils down to money, that "most-addictive drug" Belfort speaks of, and not just what it can buy, but what it can do to people. Not just how it changes one's lifestyle but the effects it has on one's morals, beliefs, and values, and how it can effectively change not just how a person thinks and feels but how they operate at their core.

With a collection of truly incredible films, The Wolf of Wall Street stands out as one of Scorsese's best films, my personal favorite and by far his most humorous film to date. He truly went all out and it paid off in a hilarious satire on the reverence of money, drugs, women, and the admiration of a criminal money-maker. The Wolf of Wall Street is maddening cinema that's already high on coke but still continues to snort more white powder every 5 minutes for 3 hours. This is a fascinating vignette of excess, greed, abuse and decay and it's one of the best movies of the decade and surely one of the most entertaining movies ever made.