Director Martin Scorsese is like a fine wine. He only gets better with age. As the 71-year-old man settles into old age he continues to make offbeat, simply astonishing films. “The Wolf of Wall Street” is certainly no exception. It’s a film brimming with energy and even at 3 hours in length never contains a dull or wasted moment. A far cry - in style, tone, and subject matter - from his last picture, the terrific family-friendly ode to silent French cinema “Hugo,” but no less cinematic and beautiful, “The Wolf of Wall Street” features a towering performance from Leonardo DiCaprio as a real life Wall Street millionaire whose debauchery and excessive use of both drugs and women eventually cause his complete and utter downfall. Scorsese and DiCaprio have always had a great filmmaking relationship over the last decade and here is where both of their abilities have just simply crested into the ultimate Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration. It’s outstanding work.
To think that just two years ago Martin Scorsese was getting
so much attention for his film Hugo. It was mostly due to the fact that the
once gritty filmmaker, who had helmed 70s classics “Mean Streets” and “Taxi
Driver” was making a PG-rated family film about an orphan boy’s misadventures
in a Paris train station was enough to turn heads. The film ended up a
masterpiece that only worked because Scorsese is such a master storyteller,
both figuratively and visually. It turned out to be a terrific film that just
happened to not contain a single profane word or any drugs. And here we are now
with “The Wolf of Wall Street” a film that has turned just as many heads as it
once courted an NC-17 rating for its sometimes borderline explicit content. Oh
yeah and it’s his longest film to date clocking in at 179 minutes. But is it
any good? Hell yeah.
Leonardo DiCaprio gives one of his absolute best
performances as Jordan Belfort a real life stockbroker who quickly worked his
way up the ranks of Wall Street to become an eventual multimillionaire. Of
course, he didn’t quite do it all legally. He’s quickly told by his boss (a
brief but memorable Matthew McConaughey) to adapt a life of drugs and sex. Injected
with a renewed sense of “I can do anything” he begins selling penny stocks in
large quantities to people who can’t afford it. He builds his own company with
his equally immoral friends from the ground up and becomes the wildest and
craziest CEO on Wall Street. We’re talking prostitutes, tossing midgets, naked
marching bands here. He eventually attracts the attention of the FBI (including
Kyle Chandler) who are suspicious of his extreme lifestyle. And so sets a three
hour journey of corrupt business ethics, immoral behavior, deviant drug and
sexual content, and some of the wildest and most eccentric filmmaking you’ll
see all year.
The film is based on Belfort’s own memoir he published in
2007 after serving some time in prison for fraud and all that jazz. Terence
Winter (who created HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”) adapts the book into a simply
delightful screenplay. It features some offbeat elements – like breaking the
fourth wall – that isn’t even remotely new to the medium, but works wonders
here. Belfort is pretty much a despicable, immoral person yet the combination
of tight writing and DiCaprio’s brilliant performance make us cheer him on – to
an extent of course. If TV’s Breaking Bad can make us root for a family man
turned drug kingpin, Martin Scorsese makes it just as easy to root for this degenerate
of a human being. He makes his lifestyle seem fun and wild, showing over and
over again in gross excess just how crazy things get. And that’s the point. If you
are still cheering Belfort on by the third act you might have to look at
yourself in the mirror. There is definitely a point in which it just all goes
to far and you’re forced to realize just how horrible and empty Belfort’s life
truly is. It’s up to the viewer to figure out when the moment comes.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” certainly isn’t for everyone.
There is some pretty raunchy content here. The fact that the film’s overall
tone is actually pretty comedic helps soften the impact of so much extreme drug
use, f-bombs, and in-your-face sexual content. There’s a perfect balance of
tone helped by equally moving and funny performances. Jonah Hill is simply outstanding
here as one of Belfort’s right hand men. Even Margo Robbie in a limited role as Belfort’s
beautiful wife does much more with her role than one would expect. What an
outstanding cast and crew that has simply made one of the year’s most entertaining
films. GRADE: A