Too much in general .....

Rating: 5/10 (20 July 2015)

The big problem with this movie is that it tells the story of a real-life, self-indulgent, amoral lowlife and the people dumb enough to be swept along by him, and it is, by all accounts, a pretty accurate portrayal of events. Consequently the viewer is "treated" to too much swearing, too much sex, too much drug-taking, too much teen boy humour ... and to cap it all, the film is too long.
There are good bits about it. The acting is generally good and DiCaprio is great in the lead role. I always think he does dissolute, self-destructive characters much better than the more lightweight ones he often plays. It is mildly amusing in parts, and the soundtrack is also good. I guess it should also score points for accuracy - unfortunately!
I suppose what it lacks is balance and morality. There was no portrayal of, or meaningful reference to, the victims in all this - the people who were conned by this guy and his business. I suppose it's also pretty unsatisfying in that it's not like the guy really got what was coming to him. A bit of jail-time and now I believe he's some sort of motivational speaker or whatever. I would have liked to see him suffer a bit more. So in some ways it's a celebration of getting away with it which is maybe why I find it a bit distasteful, but to be fair it's just a movie which is showing things they way they happened.
I didn't hate it but I didn't particularly enjoy it either and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It was just too much of everything, the swearing became tedious, the sex was incredibly unsexy, and the drug-taking just got boring. It just goes to show that too much of anything really IS a bad thing. Despite liking some aspects I couldn't bring myself to rate it higher than 5, and DiCaprio's performance probably accounted for 4 of those stars. There is absolutely no way it deserves the 8+ it's currently got on IMDb. That's Goodfellas territory and this movie doesn't even come close I'm afraid.