I think my friends were quite shocked when I said I wanted to see The Wolf Of Wall Street, knowing how anti-drugs I am. The film was clearly going to show gratuitous drug taking and yet I was intrigued by the trailer. All that chanting by Matthew McConaughey for one. And knowing that Martin Scorsese is such a renowned film maker, I had to know what it was about the movie that made him want to make it.
The film is based on a book of the same name, written by and from the perspective of former Wall Street Stockbroker Jordan Belfort. We follow Belfort on his Wall Street journey, starting out as a junior stockbroker, ambitious and naive with a hairdresser wife at home, and we see him through the black monday stock market crash, rebuilding his career, becoming addicted to almost every drug there is, losing his wife and replacing her with a younger model, and returning to success. But as the FBI start to keep a watchful eye on Belfort and his colleagues, the net soon starts to close in on them and their decadent lifestyles.
After seeing the movie, I wasn't all that much clearer on any of the things that intrigued me going in. I only found out what the chanting was all about when I saw McConaughey on Graham Norton's show the other night. And I'm still at a bit of a loss to explain why Scorsese wanted to make this film, other than maybe he felt that as he is in the midst of his twilight years, he should make a movie as gratuitous as possible?
One of the problems I had with the movie is it's length. When I saw American Hustle with one of my friends, a movie that is the average film length at 2 hours (2 and a half with ads and trailers), she told me that she felt at least 40 minutes of that film could have been cut. Personally, I don't see where. I have seen Hustle a number of times since and I don't find it overly long. The Wolf Of Wall Street on the other hand is over 2 and half hours long (3 with ads and trailers). And it felt much longer.
The other, and probably more important failure of this movie is that there is not a single decent character that you can get behind. I apologise for again using American Hustle as a comparison but, although the main characters in Hustle, Irving and Sydney, do some bad things, they do at least have a conscience about those things. And at the heart of Hustle is a character who has nothing but good intentions. The irony being that he is the only one really who suffers in the end. Whereas The Wolf Of Wall Street has maybe one likable character in the whole film, Jordan's father, played by the ever lovable Rob Reiner. The problem is that Reiner's character is only in the film for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes of over 150 minutes of movie. He's not central enough for him to be the emotional heart of the story. And without that, you just find yourself watching horrible people do horrible things for 3 hours.
Also, this is more of a nitpick, but are we really supposed to believe that at the start of the movie, DiCaprio's character is only 26? Because I'm sorry, he may be baby faced but he isn't baby faced enough to pass for 26 anymore.
I can't help but feel like Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are the new Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. And we all know how detrimental that relationship has become, to both careers. Scorsese needs to start making movies with someone other than DiCaprio. Because then maybe both men will make better decisions for their respective careers. If DiCaprio does win the Oscar for this film it will be a crying shame, as it will clearly be a pity vote on behalf of the academy for his failure to win one under his many previous nominations.
A very long, gratuitous tale about a bunch of really unlikable people who do a lot of drugs and not a lot else. 4 out of 10.
Viewing Date -19th January 2014
UK Release Date - 17th January 2014
Cast Overview:
Jordan Belfort ~ Leonardo DiCaprio
Donnie Azoff ~ Jonah Hill
Naomi Lapaglia ~ Margot Robbie
Mark Hanna ~ Matthew McConaughey
Agent Patrick Denham ~ Kyle Chandler
Max Belfort ~ Rob Reiner
Manny Riskin ~ Jon Favreau
Jean Jacques Saurel ~ Jean Dujardin
Aunt Emma ~ Joanna Lumley
Director ~ Martin Scorsese
Writer(s) ~ Terence Winter (Screenplay) and Jordan Belfort (Book)
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