‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Huffs And Puffs And Blows Away Its Competition (Movie Review)
At last, after months of teasing trailers, I was able to sit in on a pre-screening of my most anticipated movie of the year, Wolf of Wall Street. As expected, it did not let me down. I had 3 hours of pure enjoyment. That’s right, I said 3 hours!!! Even without popcorn! Martin Scorsese has truly outdone himself with this film. Clocking in at an impressive 179 minutes, Wolf of Wall Street has set a record as Mr. Scorsese’s longest fictional film by beating out Casino by a mere one minute. Wolf is, in my opinion, by far the director’s most exciting film in years. Second runner up would be The Departed. How this film did not get a NC-17 rating is beyond me. Scorsese has pushed the boundaries of R rating to the absolute limits with a combination of drugs, strippers, sex, depravity and oh so much more. Not that I am complaining about that, because in no way am I. So do I have your attention yet?? Ok, I cannot wait any longer to dive into this brilliant film.
In case you are not aware of what the movie is about I will take a minute to fill you in and make sure you are on the same page. Wolf of Wall Street is based on the true story of a young man named Jordan Belfort (played by DiCaprio) from Queens with bigs dreams of making it big on Wall Street. We see his rise to becoming an extremely wealthy stockbroker living the dream to his inevitable fall involving crime, corruption and the dreaded FBI. Leonardo’s performance was spectacular. He was able to give such an emotional depth to the character that you found yourself rooting for him, even though he was a sleaze ball.
In the opening scenes you witness a dwarf throwing office party, complete with hookers, naked marching band, booze, quaaludes and lets not forget Belfort’s drug of choice, cocaine. After the fun we flash back to the beginning, where he gets a taste of the absolute madness of Wall Street and where his insatiable appetite to consume everything around him begins.
He is just a greenhorn when he starts working at Rothschilds in 1987. There he is introduced to the wild and crazy life of a stockbroker by none other than his boss Mark Hanna (played by Matthew McConaughey, seen too briefly) in one of my favorite scenes. Hanna teaches Belfort his two-step method for dealing with the intense stresses of the job: ingest generous amounts of cocaine and masturbate several times a day (at least two times is mandatory).
When the Black Monday market crash of 1987 happens, it forces Belfort back to square one, searching the Help Wanted ads for a new job. He comes across a job at a rinky-dink store front brokerage firm in Long Island that specializes in “penny stocks,” AKA a cheap sell to the unlucky sucker (investor) that will never see a cent in return. This is where Belfort realizes he has what it takes to make millions from scamming the hard working blue collared workers out of everything. With all the money he has raked in from penny stocks, Belfort has purchased one sweet ride that catches the eye of neighbor Donnie Azoff (the hilarious, Jonah Hill) who is ready to quit his job at the drop of a hat and work for him if Belfort can produce a pay stub showing the thousands of dollars he made last month. From there Belfort decides to open his own firm, Stratton Oakmont, with Azoff as his wing man. They pull together a crew of misfits (mostly drug dealers) to train to become successful brokers. Now before I move on I have to stop briefly to talk about the one and only Jonah Hill. Hill as Donnie Azoff is absolutely an Oscar-worthy performance. It is in my opinion, Hill’s best performance to date. Ok, moving on…
As the millions start to build up so does the drug-fueled madness. Belfort is feeling untouchable. Buying mansions, helicopters, yachts and sports cars, along with ingesting any drug he can get his hands on, he is living large and loving it. Even the wise advice of his father (Ron Reiner) is not enough to control Belfort’s greed and obsession to do what he wants. His wild behavior and erratic lifestyle ultimately causes his self-destruction.
Talk about a high-risk reward, the ongoing partnership between Scorsese and DiCaprio is one of cinema’s best, and just keeps getting better. This is by far DiCaprio’s finest three hours on the big screen. I cannot say enough about his performance. He did not just play Jordan Belfort he became Jordan Belfort. While this is NOT a movie to bring the little ones to, it is one that should not be missed. It is well worth the price of a babysitter for a few hours. You will not regret it.
I’m very interested to see what the 4-hour cut looks like. Something tells me Paramount will probably release this version and double dip at a later date.