The Wolf of Wall Street ***** (2013, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie) – Movie Review

Leonardo DiCaprio won the 2014 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for director Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. Now that’s odd. I didn’t realise it was a musical or comedy, it’s more like a Mafia movie without gangsters, unless of course you call bankers and stock brokers gangsters, though much of it is funny and its mind-bending three-hour running time is swirled along with a lot of music, most of it seemingly randomly chosen from hits of yesteryear. A key climactic scene is played out to a souped-up version of Mrs Robinson, for example, and for reasons totally unknown.

What The Wolf of Wall Street is, I suppose, is a ferocious satire of the 80s banking excesses. Now that’s already a problem for Scorsese, because this subject already has brilliant films – remember Wall Street (1987) and Boiler Room (2001)? I hate to say it but Scorsese and his  screenplay writer Terence Winter (a TV producer and writer known for Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos) look as though they’ve been re-running these movies a lot at home. Nevertheless, by sheer talent, inspiration, sweat and energy, they’ve come up with an inspired spin on those two movies and their concerns.

They’ve started with Jordan Belfort’s book, and, I imagine, reimagined it entirely for the screen as A Martin Scorsese Film. Well, good. The second part good, anyway. Putting money in Jordan Belfort’s pocket by buying the movie rights to his tawdry life story seems a huge moral problem after you’ve seen what he gets up to in the movie. If what we see is true, of course.

And what does he get up to in the movie? Well, in the film, Belfort is a kid in the late 80s who loses his job in whatever banking crisis (there are so many, that’s the point) there was back then. But he has a recovery as a Long Island penny stockbroker who is very, very good at it, extracting hard-earned money from basically poor people, and making 50% profit from their winnings on gambling with it. Basically he can talk the hind legs off a donkey. He makes a lot of money. He rips a lot of ordinary folks off. His nice first wife Teresa (Cristin Milioti) doesn’t like it. He promptly divorces her when he finds a sexier model.

Business goes so well, he forms his own little team, along with his partner Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), then becomes a rich-as-Croesus stockbroker living the high life and frankly not giving a damn about what he’s prepared to do in terms of drugs, women and money. Now he’s ripping a lot of wealthy folks off. This involves him in defrauding investors in a massive 1990s securities scam that embraced widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including the shoe designer Steve Madden (Jake Hoffman).

Unfortunately for him, but good for the rest of us, Belfort’s excesses attract the attention of the SEC and then the FBI, and especially Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who eventually trap him into serving 36 months in prison for crime and corruption. But the film has a happy ending. Belfort emerges as a hugely successful life coach. He’s still able to talk the hind legs off a donkey.

Now, first things first. It’s Scorsese, so you have to admire it. He knows more about film-making than anybody on the planet. He’s pretty much on fire here, wound up and running on overdrive. This is indeed A Martin Scorsese Film, a near (though slightly poorer) cousin of Goodfellas and Casino. So good.

Second, DiCaprio gives an award-winning class performance. It’s worth seeing just for him. He’s really up for it, all the excesses of the character and his behaviour, and it’s a great showcase for DiCaprio’s unusual talents. This is his fifth collaboration with Scorsese, and it’s a rich game plan for both men.

While I’m on about the acting, it’s all pretty much brilliant, quite dazzling. In the main star support turns Hill is a revelation as Belfort’s crazy buddy and Margot Robbie is astounding as Belfort’s second wife Naomi. Chandler’s FBI agent is excellent; he’s a creepy, smiling and a dangerous opponent for Belfort. Most of the other performances are short and supporting, some too short. Matthew McConaughey amuses in his, basically, one scene as broker Mark Hanna, Rob Reiner is solid as Belfort’s more cautious dad, Jean Dujardin makes a strong impression as smug and swindling Swiss banker Jean Jacques Saurel, and Joanna Lumley’s spot as Belfort’s English aunt by marriage is a lot of fun. Who’d have thought, Lumley in a Scorsese movie and getting to kiss Leo!

Third, this is an incredibly stylish movie. That’s not surprising with Scorsese, but what is surprising is that it’s so funny. Scorsese isn’t naturally great with laughs. He doesn’t strike you as a very funny guy. Here he’s in broad farce mode.

Now the film’s downsides. It’s three hours right, and it takes a definite dip exactly at half way. You look at your watch to check the time. Yep, an hour and a half have gone. How are they going to string it out for another hour and a half. But they do. It starts to gear up again, though it’s still in third gear for about half an hour. You look at your watch again. Two hours gone. And then it gets into top gear for its brilliant last hour. Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s brilliant film editor, has kept it on the rails, dynamic all through. This is a major achievement.

The old Hollywood Scorsese loves would never have allowed him to tell this tale at three hours. The studio would have cut it in half and thrown away all the out-takes. But Scorsese pulls it off as a banking epic. Scorsese triumphs. Shorter might have been better. Brevity is the proverbial soul of wit and all that. But here we are at three hours. Bring snacks. There’s a bit of dross among the gold but not very much.

Second downside: there’s no doubt that it glorifies and humanises what is shown here as a seriously vile piece of work – a drug abusing, sex addicted financial fiddler. It revels in and glorifies drug taking, abuse of women and money fiddling.

Belfort is portrayed as avaricious, misogynistic, racist and homophobic. But DiCaprio (and Scorsese) make us like him, admire him want to be him and live his hedonistic life. We see Belfort slap his wife and punch her in the stomach. But Belfort’s wife doesn’t stand by him when he’s in trouble and wants a divorce, so that’s OK.

We see him preside over the homophobic interrogation and beating up of his gay butler who’s held an orgy in his apartment while the Belforts were away. The butler’s annoyed Belfort and money’s been stolen from a drawer, so that’s OK too. Worse, this scene is also played out like it’s somehow meant to be funny. It’s shocking, and a dreadful misjudgement. But it’s symptomatic of the film. Everything is funny, so everything Belfort and pals do is basically OK or at least forgiveable. That’s the same with gangster movies of course. But they are a whole better when they’re played seriously. Gangster comedies about real folks are big trouble.

Third, The Wolf of Wall Street is no deep thinker. What’s it got to say? Bankers are ****ers. That’s it. That’s all you’ve got? Everybody agrees on the film’s point about the destructive excesses of the banking system and it seems to have no other point to make. And did I mention also that the idea of Hollywood folks condemning materialism is a bit rich? Total hypocrisy, actually.

The subject is way out there, and that’s its main attraction, dodgy area though it gets us in. But there’s no doubt that it’s absolutely brilliantly handled, however, with a series of brio sequences, a sizzling screenplay with brilliant dialogue and superb acting turns. You watch it riveted. It’s magnetic.

One of Scorsese’s best movies, it’s hugely entertaining, quite special, and, of course, it’s an intelligent movie for grown-ups and I hope it does real well. And it did! On a high cost of $100million, it grossed $392million worldwide, including $117million in the US. It was surprisingly a bit thin on awards but it won the AFI 2014 Movie of the Year award.

Incidentally, many names in the movie have been changed. For example Belfort’s partner Danny Porush (who also was later imprisoned) is renamed Donnie Azoff, FBI Agent Gregory Coleman is now called Patrick Denham and Nadine Belfort is now Naomi Belfort and the Jordan Belfort discussed here is only the character shown in the movie. What he’s really like would probably make another movie. Who knows?

The Wolf of Wall Street and Disney’s animated smash Frozen were the two most-pirated movies for 2014 with each title downloaded about 30 million times by torrent users worldwide.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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