It's a good day, right? We have a movie
by Martin Scorcese, a man who has to be considered in the top
ten of film directors ever to live, or that will ever
live. And we have Mr. Scorcese guiding his new muse, the
very talented Leonardo DiCaprio, yet again. It used to
be Robert DeNiro back in the day… note that at this time Mr.
DeNiro is getting punched in the face by Sylvester Stallone in
the allegedly putrid 'Grudge Match'… also note we haven't seen
it as of yet to pass such judgement… but just be careful Mr.
DiCaprio as that could be you in the year 2044 getting punched
in the face by Channing Tatum. Regardless of all of
that, the name of this movie is 'The Wolf of Wall Street' and
it should be awesome. And it is… for a little while…
but… well… we will get into all of that a bit later.
Mr. DiCaprio assumes the role of Jordan Belfort, a young man
who has snagged a job on Wall Street and just wants to be
rich. For the first five minutes of this three hour
movie, Jordan isn't such a bad guy. He seems to be a
good husband to his wife and just wants to earn an honest
living on his quest to being a millionaire. Say goodbye
to that Jordan Belfort. Forever.
The Jordan Belfort we will be spending the next few hours with
has quickly learned that he has a talent for lying to people
and selling them garbage. With the right approach, this
can be very lucrative I have learned. Jordan, along with
his eventual good friend Donny (Jonah Hill), will start his
own firm and employs his own team of brokers who lie to people
and sell them worthless junk. This is crazy lucrative,
but also, apparently, kind of illegal.
Legality aside, all we can tell you is that Jordan's firm,
Stratton Oakmont, has Jordan and his boys in the nicest cars,
the best clothes, the plushest homes, and all the whores and
drugs that they can
handle. And all of this insane excess
is brilliantly illustrated through Scorcese's masterful
lens. Jordan even traded up his wife for the more
appropriate and exotically erotic Naomi (Margot Robbie) who
just loves her new husband. At least for the time being.
Jordan Belfort loves drugs, loves having illicit relationships
with prostitutes and the like, he loves buying toys, and he
loves ruining lives. But do you know what Jordan really
likes? He'll tell you its money, but from where I was
sitting, Jordan likes giving long, drawn out, profanity laced
inspirational speeches. Oh my goodness, if this cat was
given a choice between doing a line of primo Columbian powder
or giving a speech, he'd choose the speech every time.
Eventually though, as it tends to happen in these movies, it
all has to come to an end. Now for the most part, in
real life, the good times never end for these Wall Street
types but who wants to see a movie about that? I know I
don't. It seems once every 20 or so years they throw one
their particularly obnoxious ones to the SEC wolves and make a
story about it, but in reality nothing ever really happens to
these people. Jordan Belfort, and you will be hard
pressed to find anybody more obnoxious than this guy in the
way he was presented, was one of these sacrificial lambs who
allowed his greed and hubris to get the better of him.
But hopefully redemption is awaiting Jordan Belfort. Or
not.
Okay folks, so for the first hour or so of Mr. Scorcese's
scorching treatise of the corrupt world of Wall Street through
the drug hazed eyes of Jordan Belfort, I was mesmerized.
Amazed. In ecstasy. In love even. I mean
this movie moves so fast, is so funny, so decadent and
immoral, not to even mention Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill
playing off of each other like so kind of modern version of
Martin and Lewis… this is cinema as art if ever there was art.
Then around second hour of the Jordan Belfort show, and maybe
sometime in the middle of his third profanity laced
inspirational speech, I think it was starting to get to
me. Nothing has changed in regards to the quality of
this movie, mind you, as the pace is still lighting fast, the
dialog is still as crisp as freshly printed money, and the
performances might even be getting better at this point… plus
when you can convince actors such as Jean Dujardin to show up
in what amounts to a virtual cameo, you know you have some
pull… but Jordan and his lifestyle are starting to wear me
down.
By the third hour, I'm pretty much done. Jordan, his
friends, his lifestyle, his speeches have all worn me down to
a nub. Now I'm asking myself, in hour three, 'what's the
point'? Who am I rooting for here? Definitely not
Jordan who is presented as one of the worst people the planet
Earth has ever coughed up. Maybe the hardworking FBI
agent (Kyle Chandler) who is obsessed with bringing Jordan
down, but he's kind of a jerk too. His second wife who
drinks wine with a straw? Nope. Though we are
happy to see that even terrible people care about their
kids. The only character with any kind of conscious was
Jordan's dad Max (Rob Reiner), yet another role which was well
played, but everything else in this movie was reprehensible.
Now is this really a problem? Well, for two hours or so,
no... it was not. I got the point that these are not
good people, and probably aren't redeemable in any logical
way, but I got that point hours ago. And in reference to
the length of 'The Wolf of Wall Street', I can say that I
wasn't sitting in the theater staring at my watch, this film
is far too well crafted to allow that, but I was aware that I
was getting assaulted and I had grown tired of it.
Naturally, as is with anything you read on this site, it's
just a personal opinion. 'The Wolf of Wall Street' was
an amazing film, but in the final analysis, from my point of
view, it ended up being too much of a good thing.
