The Wolf of Wall Street

4 out of 4 Stars

In 1987, the phrase “Greed is good” epitomized the environment of Wall Street. In his new film, The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese stretches out Gorden Gekko’s infamous line into a three hour tale of sex, drugs, and hedonism that is shameless, corrupt, and brilliant. Based on his bestselling memoir of the same name, Jordon Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) started off his career on Wall Street at the age of 22 until Black Monday pulled the rug out of any investor and stock broker in the country, that is until he decides to sell penny stock at rake in fifty percent commission on his sales to any clueless investor on the phone. Soon enough, he creates the infamous Stratton Oakmont brokerage firm which is nothing more than a playground of excess for any horny businessman in suspenders and two-thousand dollar suits. As Belfort’s dealings in fraud and a laundry list of SEC violations soar, so does his addiction to living life in a manner in which Caligula would approve of until he falls fast like Icarus getting too close to the sun.

As with any Scorsese film, there are antiheroes, but not in Wolf Of Wall Street. Leonardo DiCaprio’s unsympathetic portrayal of Belfort is wild and edgy from being given oral sex in his Lamborghini to having a candle being shoved up where the sun doesn’t shine by a hooker (and that’s just in the first hour of the film). When he’s giving his pep talks to his fellow brokers, he channels the clenched teeth of Kirk Douglas in Spartacus to Al Pacino’s profanity-laced roars from Any Given Sunday. DiCaprio is surprisingly funny when he spends a solid three minutes trying to crawl into his car as soon as he takes high doses of Quaaludes. Jordan Belfort, he has no moral compass and DiCaprio brings the worse out in him leading to one of his best performances  in his long-established career of playing rebels and antiheroes in the last four films he collaborated on with Scorsese.

Jonah Hill gives an unforgettable performance as Belfort’s right-hand man, Donnie Azoff, a Quaalude-popping, goldfish swallowing degenerate with a set of teeth as pure white as the mountains of cocaine consumed in the movie. Hill goes from Superbad to “Super-badass” giving a performance that fits in with the comedic roles he portrayed in Judd Apatow’s films in the past with the raw intensity that only Scorsese can capture on film. The chemistry between Hill and DiCaprio can easily be comparable to Joe Pesci and Robert Di Niro, except Pesci and Di Niro never smoked crack together or performed CPR during a drug trip. Australian-born Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Jordan’s ex-model second wife is full of zest as she goes along for the turbulent ride of being Joardan’s wife. Her femme-fetale persona is ironic given the fact that she seems to be the only sane one in this three-ring circus of sex, drugs, and greed.

The expansive cast includes a stellar 10 minutes of Matthew McConaughey as a Wall Street veteran giving a young Jordan Belfort the methods leading to his madness over martinis and cocaine. Jean Dujardin, who won the Oscar for his silent performance in The Artist two years earlier, oozes with charm and shiftiness as a Swiss banker that comes into Jordan’s life. The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal is outstanding as Brad, one of Jordan’s Long Island goons and the muscle for Stratton Oakmont. Rounding up the cast is a series of great cameos from directors; Rob Reiner as Jordan’s hotheaded father, Jon Favreau as Jordan’s eyes and ears on Wall Street and the SEC, and Spike Jonze as a hapless penny stock broker working out of a strip mall.      

Scorsese’s passion for music blending into the story is irresistible, such as the case for enlisting his old musical buddy Robbie Robertson and Wes Anderson’s musical supervisor Randal Poster to pick and choose a wide and wild selection of music for Scorsese’s corrupt interpretation of the mean streets of Fifth Avenue. The excess and euphoria of the brokers at Stratton Oakmont is complimented by the diverse sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Cypress Hill, and Billy Joel. In addition to the selected music is the infamous chant Matthew McConaughey gives that becomes a musical war cry for any stock broker about to rob anyone blind.

The film has stirred controversy for Scorsese’s hedonistic portrayal of life on Wall Street, however almost all of his films hit a nerve at holding a mirror up to society and the rise and fall of opportunists, even with a dark comedy such as The Wolf of Wall Street. For example, one secretary shaves her head for ten thousand dollars while Jordan and his wife have sex on a pile of money. The satirical elements of Wall Street are as comedic as the heads of state fighting in the War Room in Dr. Strangelove. If anything, The Wolf of Wall Street is a Fellini-esque look at modern day America and the pursuit for the most addicting drug known to man: Money.