Badfellas

Rating: 4/10 (13 January 2014)

I'm not sure just how far into "The Wolf of Wall Street" that the realization finally hit me that Martin Scorsese had made this movie before. It's "Goodfellas" with different criminals, and it's not as good. This film is longer, and raunchier -- I wished my soul could take a shower fairly early on -- and while it's certainly lavishly made, with great acting, this restatement lacks the charm that the mob movie had. The artifices that were so novel in 1990 (the narration, playing to the camera, the long steadicam shots) now look derivative, and you cannot root for these characters like you might have before, even though both casts are replete with lowlife, scum criminals. At least Henry, Tommy, and Jimmy were likable lowlife, scum criminals. Jordan Belfort and his partners are simply reprehensible.
I expected the cursing and didn't mind it, even though this film probably tops both seasons of "Deadwood" in uses of the f-word, because many New Yorkers do talk that way. I must admit that I was a bit taken aback by the gratuity of the sex scenes, which made "Caligula" look tame by comparison, and I can't imagine that people could possibly take the amount of drugs depicted in this film and still live, much less function. Perhaps I've lived a sheltered life. But this film is not for the faint of heart.
On the positive side, I very much enjoyed the performance of Rob Reiner as Belfort's father, loved Kyle Chandler as the FBI agent, and thought it was a great touch to have Bo Dietl play himself (plus that he appears in both "Wolf" and "Goodfellas"). There are many faces you've seen before, and I'll probably spend a good deal of time surfing the IMDb to see all the connections. And I hope that we see more of Margot Robbie -- meaning seeing her in more films, since we will have already seen all of her in this one -- as this is her meatiest role since "Pan Am," and she proves here that she has some real acting chops.
In short, I would say that you should save your money on this film, and buy the DVD to "Goodfellas," that you many enjoy it in its brilliance over and over, instead of this rehash.