[Cinema] Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio's 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

Rocketman95 · Oct 29, 2013

So yeah! Love that flick...very underrated.

percicles · Dec 3, 2013

It finally screened two days ago with an embargo on reviews until mid December. One critic posted it and it was immediately take down but a copy/pasta is available on imdb.

The early word is it's on par with Goodfellas/Casino.

An Unflinching Masterpiece: The Wolf of Wall Street
December 2, 2013
by Ben Sampson

There’s a scene in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) where stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) makes violent love to his trophy wife (Margot Robbie) on a bed of millions in cash. There’s a scene where Jordan celebrates the end of the workday by parading a half-naked marching band and a procession of strippers across the trading floor. There’s a scene where Jordan looks into camera and explains his money-laundering scheme to the audience, only to stop midstream and say, “But you don’t care about any of this. All you care about is whether we made a *beep* load of money!” And there’s a scene, many scenes actually, where Jordan and his entourage uses hindered-dollar bills to snort cocaine off of every female body part you can imagine.

The Wolf of Wall Street is not a subtle film. It bombards you with its content. It bludgeons you with its purpose. It’s a blunt, scornful, nasty piece of work, and it wants to be. It’s the type of unflinching masterpiece Martin Scorsese was born to direct.

The film chronicles the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort, a real-life stockbroker and white-collar criminal, portrayed here with brilliant intensity and charisma by DiCaprio. When Jordan enters Wall Street in the 1980s he possesses a temperate character and a loving wife. When he leaves in the 1990s, Jordan has been consumed by Wall Street’s culture of greed, drugs and prostitution. He’s struggling to hold his second marriage together. He’s hounded by the FBI. He’s drug addled and doesn’t know whom to trust. If you know Scorsese’s previous films, this plot description will seem very familiar.

The Wolf of Wall Street is obviously the fourth film in Scorsese’s gangster series. The previous three films explored the criminal underworld and its inhabitants at different social levels, from the street-level thugs in Mean Streets (1973) to the middlemen gangsters of Goodfellas (1990) to big-money bosses in Casino (1995). Now Scorsese’s tackles crime at the highest level of money and corruption—the stock market. Once again, Scorsese’s brings his rock-n-roll pace and pop-music soundtrack. Once again, the camera tracks the action with restless intensity. And once again, a main character narrates his journey through an illicit lifestyle, detailing every scheme and twist, every success and excess, while we watch the details fly across the screen, our minds scrambling just to keep up. The experience is pure Scorsese exhilaration.

At the same time, this film introduces new twists on Scorsese’s gangster template. His previous crime films shocked audiences with the gruesome portrayals of gangland violence, but the stockbrokers in The Wolf of Wall Street don’t need guns to rob people of their money. In the place of physical brutality, Scorsese chooses to shock audiences with the emotional cruelty of these men’s lives—the machismo posturing, the constant threats and insults, the bullying and lying, the non-stop streams of vulgarity, the utter dependency on drugs to function, and the addiction to sex. The drug use and the sexual content are especially graphic in the film—its easy to understand Scorsese’s struggles to not receive an NC-17 rating—and yet their treatment doesn’t feel exploitative. It feels overwhelming and soul numbing. It feels desperate and wretched, like inner-turmoil and addiction granted visual form. And, of course, these issues provide great drama. One of the film’s most bravado sequences finds Jordan under a huge time pressure to get home while fighting the effects of an overdose of Quaaludes. This sequence acts as a direct echo to Scorsese’s famed cocaine-paranoia sequence in Goodfellas, but this time with the action slowed to a nerve-wracking crawl.

Another key difference between The Wolf of Wall Street and Scorsese’s previous work is the decidedly colder, even comedic, attitude towards the characters. While Scorsese never went easy on gangsters in the past, never pardoned their crimes or overlooked their victims, you did sense empathy from the director. He understood these people, grew up in similar neighborhoods, idolized them as a child looking out the window, and now as an adult mourned for their lost souls. You do not, however, sense empathy in the film for Jordan Belfort, or his kind. There is no true understanding, and how could there be? Their wealth is absurd and their appetites grotesque, and the extremes of their lives make sense only to them. Even the concept of family, that idol so weirdly worshiped by mobsters, seems irrelevant to these master of the universe. The stockbrokers in The Wolf of Wall Street are like “goodfella” gangsters without the heart, and the outsider can only look on with wonder and disbelief. While Scorsese tracks their money-obsessed lives with an historian’s eye, he visualizes them with a jester’s scorn. The results are both gripping and often hilarious.

The performances also play a key part in the film’s success. Scorsese always gets the best out of DiCaprio, but in this fifth collaboration together the actor delivers a possible career high. Dicaprio’s portrayal of Jordan Belfort is a high-wire act of brilliant intensity and tragic charisma. As the film sprints frantically through its 3-hour running time, DiCaprio’s role offers the film a secure center, a master of ceremonies that keeps the film from ever feeling daunting. Surrounding this center is a remarkable supporting cast. In particular, Jonah Hill delivers another terrific performance as Belfort’s unlikely best friend Donnie Azoff, a character with both attractive sincerity and shocking impulse problems. Newcomer Margot Robbie also does stellar work as Naomi, Belfort’s second wife, a role that could have easily been beautiful decoration but which Robbie infuses with real intelligence and a tough interior. Matthew McConaughey also keeps his recent winning streak alive with a few scene stealing moments as Belfort early mentor. As with the world of Wall Street, all these characters are made up of fascinating details and the film devotes generous time to exploring them.

In the end, The Wolf of Wall Street is all about the details, and this is where its brilliance resides. Like much of Scorsese’s work, the film is more of a visual essay than a straight narrative. The director would rather pause the action for analysis or leave the action for an interesting tangent or abandon the action to discuss a new character than ever follow a conventional plot. Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter use first person narration to great effect here, with Jordan explaining nearly every detail of his life—from his exploitation of penny stocks to character back stories to the history of Quaaludes to his theories on the differing quality of prostitutes. The film is obsessed with the stories behind the stories, with the meanings the behind the facades. While this essayist streak has weighed down some Scorsese films (Gangs of New York) or been breathtaking but inconsistent in others (Mean Streets, Casino), The Wolf of Wall Street achieves a unique harmony of story and analysis. It’s possibly Scorsese’s most complete visual essay yet.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/board/thread/222870670
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J Sizzle · Dec 3, 2013

Can't wait. Been looking forward to this one for a LONG time.

Panda23 · Dec 3, 2013

My trouser hives are moist with honey.

Outlier · Dec 3, 2013

How does he still have it as hold as he is? Scorcese is the Tim Duncan of filmmakers.

Rocket River · Dec 3, 2013

Another movie glamourizing criminality . . . . [ like the one Bale has coming out]

Rocket River
and we wonder why we like criminals and gangsters so much . . .

rocketsfeeva · Dec 3, 2013

Really looking forward to seeing this. Comes out christmas day right? So I get to see this and Anchorman that day with my family

percicles · Dec 23, 2013

This is not a family film! There's some Requiem for a Dream realness.

Many scenes of Sex or sex related activities.

At the beginning of the film, we see a women give oral sex to a man driving a white Ferrari.'

A man has sex with a hooker in a hotel room. Then, the man snorts cocaine and blows it into the women's behind.

Two men have sex with women in a bathroom, one is shown getting a blow job, and the other is shown to be having anal sex.

In the narration, The main character describes different types of prostitutes and he and his friends are shown having sex with them.

A woman walks in on a large orgy of gay men, all nude and in various different positions, later on she talks about how they were having sex on the couch and a man jumps off it.

A man is shown wildly having sex with a flight attendant on a plane while others cheer him on.

Several instances where women are shown fully nude.

A woman flirts and acts seductive to a man, she puts her hand in her underwear and opens it up to show him.

Several scenes of missionary style sex.

A man is shown masturbating in the middle of a party to an attractive woman who has just walked in.

A man has passionate sex with a woman and she comments on how fast he finished.

Lots of vulgar and crude sexual jokes and references.

A large amount of people have sex and party on a private jet.

The main character squats fully naked and gives himself an enema with a candle.

Dairy Ashford · Dec 23, 2013

Commodore said: ↑

Hollywood is bankrupt of ideas

"Bankers are Evil" is perhaps the oldest trope in storytelling.
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Actually it's foreigners are evil, but after World War II we just made them aliens and monsters. Traders and Analysts ironically enough seem to enjoy these movies; my brother did MBS at Lehman/Barclay's and thought Margin Call was spot on.

ILoveWhiteGirls · Dec 25, 2013

Rocket River said: ↑

Another movie glamourizing criminality . . . . [ like the one Bale has coming out]

Rocket River
and we wonder why we like criminals and gangsters so much . . .
Click to expand...

You make an interesting point. To some like myself, it's just a movie. It's entertaining as hell and I got what I paid for. As for the movie, it's Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll the Wall Street edition. You guys are in for an incredible ride, 3 hours long nothing hold back unfiltered unrestricted cinema comin at you!

tmacfor35 · Dec 25, 2013

Expecting this to be the one of the better that came out in 2013.

ILoveWhiteGirls · Dec 25, 2013

Rocket River said: ↑

Another movie glamourizing criminality . . . . [ like the one Bale has coming out]

Rocket River
and we wonder why we like criminals and gangsters so much . . .
Click to expand...

Well if it makes you feel any better you can watch this followed by John McClane mowing down German Terrorist in Die Hard. You got your criminals then you got middle Class cops, it all evens out.

Progs · Dec 25, 2013

This was great, masterful film-making. 5/5. 3 hours went by fast.

B-Bob · Dec 25, 2013

percicles said: ↑

This is not a family film! There's some Requiem for a Dream realness.…

The main character squats fully naked and gives himself an enema with a candle.
Click to expand...

Wait. WHAT?

ItsMyFault · Dec 25, 2013

This movie was pretty awesome. Was kinda surprised by all of the nudity/sex that was actually shown, but it was a solid movie. I agree with Progs too, it didn't feel like 3 hours.

K-Low_4_Prez · Dec 25, 2013

B-Bob said: ↑

Wait. WHAT?
Click to expand...

I think he means that the actual visuals in the film are very real and uncut. It gives you a dirty feeling watching it, by how real it can be.

ryano2009 · Dec 26, 2013

Let me guess, a millionaires loses all of his money at the end of the movie due to his illegal activities

/story

LosPollosHermanos · Dec 26, 2013

looks great and got great reviews.

ILoveWhiteGirls · Dec 26, 2013

ryano2009 said: ↑

Let me guess, a millionaires loses all of his money at the end of the movie due to his illegal activities

/story
Click to expand...

It's not really the story that pulls you in. It's Scorsese's execution in directing.

Jontro · Dec 26, 2013

I came for teh noodz.

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[Cinema] Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio's 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

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[Cinema] Martin Scorsese & Leonardo DiCaprio's 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

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