![]() There are so many loving odes to Quaaludes that some enterprising chemist is almost certainly attempting to bring them back into production right this minute.Īnd, of course, there are women-perhaps more than anything, they’re the real spoils of the untold wealth that Belfort and his colleagues stack up. There are stacks upon stacks of crisp, fresh bills being loaded into suitcases and rolled into coke straws and fornicated upon. There are Ferraris, private helicopters, a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous pan through the high-gloss interior of Belfort’s yacht. Much of the three-hour movie is a series of manic, off-the-wall surveys of every material indulgence and deviancy money can buy. He’s quickly indoctrinated in the ways of that world by a senior partner, and after the firm goes belly-up in the wake of 1987’s Black Monday, he finds his groove pushing penny stocks-“selling garbage to garbagemen.” Thanks to his flair for patter, Belfort and his gaggle of fellow Wall Street outsiders get good fast, bring their hustle to Wall Street in the form of the WASPily named firm Stratton Oakmont, and are soon gleefully stock-frauding away while mountains of cocaine and piles of hookers appear and disappear at their whims. Thompson autobiography of one Jordan Belfort, a working-class Queens guy who starts out on Wall Street as a straitlaced young broker at a white-shoe firm. Denham gets one juicy antagonism scene, a poker face-off on Belfort's yacht, suggesting the Catch Me If You Can humor left unexplored.Since the release of Martin Scorsese’s new film, The Wolf of Wall Street, there’s been almost daily internet back-and-forth about its merits, its morality, its shortcomings, and-above all-the question of whether it glorifies greed, amoral excess, and misogyny.įor those who’ve been under a festive rock this holiday season, The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the Gordon Gekko-meets-Hunter S. Terence Winter's screenplay, adapted from Belfort's memoirs, could use a few more details about Belfort's stock frauds, why his wife (played by knockout newcomer Margot Robbie) stays so long, and how FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) follows the money and why so doggedly. DiCaprio's performance continually surprises, oddly coupled with Jonah Hill, playing Belfort's nerdy-perv sycophant. Simple enough, except he's on a drooling, slithering quaalude buzz, inspiring an extended, Keatonesque sight gag. But his funniest bit is as Belfort leaving a country club and getting into his sports car. Mostly DiCaprio exudes cocaine-jolted confidence, loud and carnal. Leading the vice parade is DiCaprio, who has never before appeared so animated, so physically adept at comedy. Yet even when it annoys, Scorsese's bacchanal is too brazen to completely dislike. ![]() Then he builds a movie around little else than stylized variations on that maniacal decadence. In a typically brilliant opening sequence, Scorsese makes clear the depths of Belfort's high living. Eventually The Wolf of Wall Street grows exhausting, our euphoria worn down while the party's still raging. Scorsese shows it all, a barker at an energetically designed peep show.įor a while it's a voyeuristic kick.
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