“My name is Jordan Belfort. The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.”
Sex, Drugs and Stocks & Shares… I should really go into the tag-line business (if there is one).
The Wolf of Wall Street tells the true story of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) on his rise to fame in the world of dollar signs, known as the stock market. A subject I knew nothing about before seeing this movie, and after watching it I don’t really know what to feel about it.
This is my first Martin Scorsese film and I have to say that I wasn’t overly impressed. I did enjoy a lot of it nonetheless – the cinematography was sublime, with almost every shot looking marvellously thought through. The artistic flare shone through as one of the strongest aspects of the film. Although, there were many uses of CGI, including the rendering of Belfort’s yacht, which to me looked obviously fake. The CGI was impressive in some scenes though.
The script was excellent. Terence winter provided copious amounts of smart, sinister, and somewhat funny dialogue for the film.
The acting was top notch all round with Leonardo DiCaprio giving a possible career best as the hedonist behemoth Belfort. Personally, I think he definitely deserves an Oscar for this. Jonah hill also gave a superb performance, giving many of the funniest lines in the film. I didn’t find it that funny though, even if there were a few instances in which I chuckled. I almost always felt bad for laughing afterwards.
The film was way too long. I have heard that many countries have insisted on shortening it to make it more palatable to viewers, which on one hand I think goes against Scorsese’s vision, but on the other makes me jealous of those countries. The run-time may seem necessary to show the sickly nature of the vile excess that these characters wallow in, but it is in the end self-indulgent and unnecessary. I could have probably have done without a couple of the orgies, or drug-induced spats – editing was obviously a bad word with the makers of the movie.
Another criticism is that the treatment of women was pretty horrible. I agree that some of it was necessary, but there was not a single female character who wasn’t a prostitute, someone’s wife/girl friend, or just completely loathsome. There was one likeable male character – the FBI agent, played by Kyle Chandler. This brings me to the fact that Jordan Belfort was a completely hateful figure, who was not at any time relateable or empathetic. I hated almost every character in the movie, so why would I want to watch 3 hours of these terrible people coning honest, hard working people and doing horrible things? Also the up-beat ending left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, as did the real Belfort’s cameo.
However, it was insightful and enjoyable a lot of the time, but I have to be honest, I was bored quite a lot. Furthermore, I have forgotten some of the film because parts of it were simply forgettable. Sorry to repeat myself, but it should have been shorter.
6/10
Harvey Gardner 