Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: Terence winter
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler
Trailer link
IMDb page
Hello problem, what seems to be the officer?:
For me personally, "The Wolf of Wall Street" is the single most outrageous and over the top depiction of greed and capitalism I have ever seen. In a scene that serves as a pretty good indicator as to what we have in store, Leonardo DeCaprios's character is seen blowing cocaine up a prostitute's ass just a few minutes into the movie, and from then on out, the movie basically evolved into a combination of "American Pie" and "Wall Street" on steroids. In other words: Scorsese's latest collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio is a three hour rampaging beast of a movie with huge amounts of nudity, drugs, money and champaign, and very low amounts of moral, manners and plot.
Greed is good?:
The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the real life experiences of Jordan Belfort, who was one of the most successful and most deceitful stockbrokers in New York during the 1980's and 1990's. Belfort is portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, and as the audience follows him on his journey from 22-year-old college graduate to one of the richest men on Wall Street, we get a somewhat blurred insight into the mindset of some the most greedy and morally bankrupt people who have ever walked the face of the earth. Leo and Scorsese have said in interviews that one their goals with the movie was to show how greed and extreme cases of materialism can be both intoxicating and blinding, in an attempt to draw a parallel to the financial situation of today. However, saying that a movie has a message and a moral is easy enough, but actually getting those points across to the audience is an entire different story.
Poetic injustice:
In the movie as well as well as real life, Jordan Belfort and his colleague Donnie Azoff (who is portrayed by Jonah Hill in the film), were a couple of grade A douchebags. Some film critiques have been complaining about the lack of real punishment that they and a lot of the other Wall Street guys in this film receive for their heinous acts towards the global economy, and Scorsese's choice not to show how the average working man was affected by and punished for their greedy behavior has also been a topic of controversy. To me though, this isolated depiction of the luxurious life on the top of the mountain actually worked quite well, because of the way in which it showed how little these guys cared about the outside world. All we see is drugs, parties, prostitutes, mansions, yachts, helicopters and Armani suits, because according to the main characters, those things were the only parts of life that really mattered.
Three laughs in as many hours:
As of 13.1-14, The Wolf of Wall Street has a rating of 8,7 on IMDb, and a lot people are claiming that it is the absolute best movie of 2013, mainly because of how "outrageously hilarious" it is. I am not one those people. Sure, there are at least three genuinely funny laugh out loud moments in the film, but that is just about it. The drug-infused hard partying nature of the first tho thirds of the movie got stale after thirty minutes in my opinion, and whilst I was sitting there in the cinema with my arms crossed feeling like an old boring man, the rest of the audience just kept on barfing with laughter. I do admit that the air-plane scene (hilfe!) and the cerebral palsy sequence hit home with me in a big way, but saying that scenes like these are what makes The Wolf of Wall Street the best movie of 2013 is unheard of in my opinion. I did not find this film nearly as entertaining as most people give it credit for, and for a three hour movie that relies entirely on mindless high octane humor, that is not exactly a good thing.
A thematically indecisive mess:
As if being way too long and not succeeding very well in its main objective was not enough, I still have not discussed my biggest problem with Scorsese's latest picture. I absolutely love Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Departed, Shutter Island and Gangs of New York, but the familiar sense of depth, meaning, care and importance that all of these great Scorsese movies have in common is nowhere to be found in The Wolf of Wall Street. Things that we are supposed to care about begin to take place in the last third of the movie, but because of the outrageous and completely uncontrolled ferocity of the previous acts, I had absolutely no sympathy for any of the main characters, and therefore could not have cared less about what was going to happen to them. The problem is not that Belfort and the rest of the characters were a bunch of ignorant assholes, but that they were so cartoonishly portrayed that they did not feel like human beings at all. The fact that the movie had spend so much time acting like an amped up episode of America Gone Wild resulted in me being utterly indifferent when I was actually supposed to be emotionally engaged, and a few of the last scenes felt especially shoehorned and thematically misplaced due to this tonal inconstancy. Opting for a grounded finale just is not the way to go when you have spent 150 minutes trying to do something entirely different.
In conclusion:
For a movie that is as long as this one is, The Wolf of Wall Street had surprisingly little to say. Its incredibly loud and hard partying nature is sure to attract a lot of teenagers and young adults tot he theaters, and the infamous Leonardo DiCaprio circle jerk is destined to reach even higher heights from now on. Scorsese's latest film admittedly is a lot of fun at times, but it most certainly was not enough to fill out three hours of screen time, especially when you consider the amount of talent involved. Jonah Hill does nail his East Coast accent very well, but I do not think that DiCaprio deserves all the praise he has been getting at all. Even though he is basically doing what Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman have been for decades in this film (going crazy and being physically hyperactive), people still claim that he delivers one of the best performances of the year, which is more than confusing to me. I do not hate the guy, I just think that he is vastly overrated, and this performance is no exception. When it comes down to it, "overrated" is probably the most fitting way of describing The Wolf of Wall Street as a whole, at least in my humble opinion. Sorry Marty.
Greed is good?:
The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the real life experiences of Jordan Belfort, who was one of the most successful and most deceitful stockbrokers in New York during the 1980's and 1990's. Belfort is portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, and as the audience follows him on his journey from 22-year-old college graduate to one of the richest men on Wall Street, we get a somewhat blurred insight into the mindset of some the most greedy and morally bankrupt people who have ever walked the face of the earth. Leo and Scorsese have said in interviews that one their goals with the movie was to show how greed and extreme cases of materialism can be both intoxicating and blinding, in an attempt to draw a parallel to the financial situation of today. However, saying that a movie has a message and a moral is easy enough, but actually getting those points across to the audience is an entire different story.
Poetic injustice:
In the movie as well as well as real life, Jordan Belfort and his colleague Donnie Azoff (who is portrayed by Jonah Hill in the film), were a couple of grade A douchebags. Some film critiques have been complaining about the lack of real punishment that they and a lot of the other Wall Street guys in this film receive for their heinous acts towards the global economy, and Scorsese's choice not to show how the average working man was affected by and punished for their greedy behavior has also been a topic of controversy. To me though, this isolated depiction of the luxurious life on the top of the mountain actually worked quite well, because of the way in which it showed how little these guys cared about the outside world. All we see is drugs, parties, prostitutes, mansions, yachts, helicopters and Armani suits, because according to the main characters, those things were the only parts of life that really mattered.
Three laughs in as many hours:
As of 13.1-14, The Wolf of Wall Street has a rating of 8,7 on IMDb, and a lot people are claiming that it is the absolute best movie of 2013, mainly because of how "outrageously hilarious" it is. I am not one those people. Sure, there are at least three genuinely funny laugh out loud moments in the film, but that is just about it. The drug-infused hard partying nature of the first tho thirds of the movie got stale after thirty minutes in my opinion, and whilst I was sitting there in the cinema with my arms crossed feeling like an old boring man, the rest of the audience just kept on barfing with laughter. I do admit that the air-plane scene (hilfe!) and the cerebral palsy sequence hit home with me in a big way, but saying that scenes like these are what makes The Wolf of Wall Street the best movie of 2013 is unheard of in my opinion. I did not find this film nearly as entertaining as most people give it credit for, and for a three hour movie that relies entirely on mindless high octane humor, that is not exactly a good thing.
A thematically indecisive mess:
As if being way too long and not succeeding very well in its main objective was not enough, I still have not discussed my biggest problem with Scorsese's latest picture. I absolutely love Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Departed, Shutter Island and Gangs of New York, but the familiar sense of depth, meaning, care and importance that all of these great Scorsese movies have in common is nowhere to be found in The Wolf of Wall Street. Things that we are supposed to care about begin to take place in the last third of the movie, but because of the outrageous and completely uncontrolled ferocity of the previous acts, I had absolutely no sympathy for any of the main characters, and therefore could not have cared less about what was going to happen to them. The problem is not that Belfort and the rest of the characters were a bunch of ignorant assholes, but that they were so cartoonishly portrayed that they did not feel like human beings at all. The fact that the movie had spend so much time acting like an amped up episode of America Gone Wild resulted in me being utterly indifferent when I was actually supposed to be emotionally engaged, and a few of the last scenes felt especially shoehorned and thematically misplaced due to this tonal inconstancy. Opting for a grounded finale just is not the way to go when you have spent 150 minutes trying to do something entirely different.
In conclusion:
For a movie that is as long as this one is, The Wolf of Wall Street had surprisingly little to say. Its incredibly loud and hard partying nature is sure to attract a lot of teenagers and young adults tot he theaters, and the infamous Leonardo DiCaprio circle jerk is destined to reach even higher heights from now on. Scorsese's latest film admittedly is a lot of fun at times, but it most certainly was not enough to fill out three hours of screen time, especially when you consider the amount of talent involved. Jonah Hill does nail his East Coast accent very well, but I do not think that DiCaprio deserves all the praise he has been getting at all. Even though he is basically doing what Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman have been for decades in this film (going crazy and being physically hyperactive), people still claim that he delivers one of the best performances of the year, which is more than confusing to me. I do not hate the guy, I just think that he is vastly overrated, and this performance is no exception. When it comes down to it, "overrated" is probably the most fitting way of describing The Wolf of Wall Street as a whole, at least in my humble opinion. Sorry Marty.
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