6-8/10 depending on your mood/intoxication levels

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2014)

This is an exceptionally difficult film to score - there's lots to like here and lots to loathe.
Arguably, the same could be said for Wolf of Wall Street except the editing here, though not great, isn't up to the tragedy level of WoWS (did they cut *anything* from that film???) so there's still stuff in here that coulda/shoulda been cut or improved.
The script, like the acting and the direction is both good and bad at times and how much you are affected by the good/bad on offer here will be totally down to personal sensitivities and will make this either a completely ordinary or a reasonably entertaining experience for you.
For me, both Cooper and Bale were outshone by their female counterparts - Cooper I found intensely irritating throughout - Bale's role is by necessity less showy but it's a mixed performance for me with elements of his Patrick Bateman performance showing through all the extra hair, makeup and glasses etc.
Amy Adams is extremely sexy to be sure but the director spends so much time luxuriating over her body (and for some reason her legs and feet - perhaps he shares my fetish ...) that anything that may be notable about her performance was lost to me.
The real acting kudos here goes to Jennifer Lawrence who I think stood out in almost every scene she was in and I'll be looking out for her future work ...
All in all, this is worth a view but you probably want to leave your brain at the entrance and pick it back up on the way out ...
Like many "big" films recently, the general standard of how well the film was *crafted* seems to have slumped to levels I've not seen since the late 1970s.
This is something I've witnessed in films like Gatsby(what the hell?? Awful!!), Wolf of Wall Street (45 minutes of worthy stuff stretched out for three hours) and 12 Years a Slave (decent but massively over-hyped with a weak script) - is it all getting just a bit too easy for folks up in Hollywood these days cos someone, somewhere, sitting atop this stuff is falling short in their duty imo ...