Really? How are people upset with this movie?

Rating: 10/10 (8 February 2014)

I guess I can understand when people are offended by the intentionally shocking nature of the film (though if you expected different from the trailer, it's kind of your own fault), but to criticize the plot and overall character arch? I mean come on.
I thought that this movie is probably the best 3 hour movie I've ever seen. There wasn't one moment where I was like, how much longer is this? Not one moment where I had a down thinking...phew this is a long movie.
The plot definitely was more lewd and more over the top then I would have expected, but it really drove home the point of the movie. This happened, this is what some people in America embody and are excited about doing. It's so extreme that it makes it disgusting, nauseating, and repulsive. Many people on here are saying how it was a movie celebrating this way of life. To that I say, really? How many people do you think thought "yeah, I'd love to have the captain of a plane tie me to my chair because I was so messed up on drugs I tried to rape a stewardess"
Nobody. The point is it's so over the top, you see really how sick these people were. They saw woman as objects, they saw life as only pleasure, all for them. Hedonism at its finest, and the results were honestly quite disturbing. There was one scene I remember when Leonardo is doing the voice-over thing as he walks through the suite in Vegas the morning after the party, and just fondles a passed out woman's breast. Just because he can. That made it clear to me how much he saw these woman as objects, as things he bought and paid to do whatever he wants with.
Sure, this could have been a movie celebrating hedonism, but instead it was done in a way that made you really think about what our values are as a society, and why people like that exist.
The way it ended, with the FBI agent sitting on the subway, and Jordan Belfort living it up in a resort like prison....it just drove home the point. These people took advantage of so many, ruined lives, stole money, and did everything possible just to live an immoral and horrible life....and they were able to get away with it for the most part. The FBI agent had his win, but then went back to his meager earnings.
It really makes you think, how messed up is our value system that someone like Jordan Belfort can buy anything he wants at anytime, and an FBI agent trying to protect us citizens is eating bagged lunches and barely scraping by?
Even carry that over to sports, or even (ironically) the entertainment industry! Is Leonardo an amazing actor? Yes. Does he entertain people? Yes. Did he deserve to be paid ten MILLION dollars for this film? NO. That is a CRAZY amount of money. Then we have nurses all over America who devote their lives to helping people, and are absolutely scraping by on their salaries. Sure, they aren't as specialized and rare as Leonardo is, but should the gap be that crazy? He could easily have made 1 million dollars for this film, still made a million in a few other movies, ands still be living it up.
All in all, this movie was hilarious, serious, and a statement on American value systems. All of it rolled into an immensely entertaining movie that didn't let you down for even a minute. Incredible (though overpaid) work by all involved! 10/10