I don’t know how to write a proper movie review, so I’ll just say a few quick things about “The Wolf Of Wall Street”. It is amazing!
The collaboration of Leonardo De Caprio and Martin Scorsese (again) is classic entertainment. The story is funny, dirty (tons of sex and drugs), the acting is super and direction by Scorsese is top notch. And the soundtrack…the oldies blends in to add punch to the scenes.
It you are looking for something really enjoyable, well worth the almost three hours (the longest Scorsese film by a mere 60 seconds) it takes to unwind the story. And doubt you will guess the ending, unless of course you’ve read the book and/or lived the life of Jordan.
“Sell me this pen” is the point that the movie wraps itself around the life of Jordan Belfort (who made a fortune starting his own boiler room, pump-and-dump brokerage). The only negative is that the movie glorifies Jordan and didn’t focus on any of the victims. But, hey, the point of seeing the movie is to be entertained.
The message I got was: The American Dream isn’t about becoming middle class and having your kids go to college, it’s about becoming ridiculously rich. But the institutions that allow people to become ridiculously rich (Wall Street banks, etc.) aren’t open to people with the wrong background and without the correct connections and breeding. So in light of that contradiction, the only way for normals to achieve the American dream is to find something that’s in a grey area of the law.
And that is exactly what Jordan does, taking a group of losers from Long Island and turning them into sales geniuses that could sell stocks like crazy (many of them penny stocks or scammy IPOs or other schemes).
The movies opens with a commercial for Stratton Oakmont brokerage. And not until several seconds into the commercial do we realize it is not another movie theatre commercial, it is the movie. All the credits are in the end. The movie features several scenes where Belfort delivers powerful, motivational speeches to the brokers at his brokerage, motivating them to greatness of be eating by the wolves (fellow brokers).
It makes for an inherently interesting theme of how people who lack resources (connections, education, social graces, good looks etc.) can achieve wild success.
The action is high octane, drug filled and very entertaining. Lots of money, exotic cars and women, helicopters, a yacht an international locations, and cocaine and hookers (lots of both) keep telling us this has to come to an end somewhere. In the words of Jordan’s father, Max (played by Rob Reiner), ‘the chickens will come home to roost”.
I won’t spoil the ending for you, so I will stop here.
The film is a party, and not just because of the drugs and debauchery. It’s because the movie sounds like a party — the soundtrack brings back Jock Jams mix CDs and Limelight club anthems.
Plus Leonardo DiCaprio can dance.
