Boring fellas

Rating: 5/10 (10 September 2016)

To many, 'Goodfellas' is Martin Scorcese's finest film. It's certainly well-constructed and entertaining, but it's arguably less nuanced and elusive than his earlier works. It's also better than anything he's made since. I liked 'Casino', but it was essentially the same movie in different clothes. And although he has made different (although generally inferior) movies since then, 'The Wolf of Wall Street' is the same movie for a third time. But it's not a patch on it's two predecessors.
For one thing, at least Robert De Nero could act. Leonardo DiCaprio, who has replaced De Nero as Scorcese's go-to lead actor, cannot, and chews the scenery throughout most of this film. Secondly, like most people, you've probably wondered how the financial services industry manages to capture such a large proportion of our national outputs for itself. This film won't tell you. At least, it hints at some of the causes - pumping and dumping penny stocks, breaking the law and the use of a sales force highly motivated by greed. Yet there isn't a real explanation of how Jordan Belfort made his fortune from nowhere, nor indeed for the general significance of the role that Wall Street plays in all our lives. At times, DiCaprio starts to explain things directly to camera, but he rarely completes his expositions, brushing it off as boring details. Thirdly, as played by DiCaprio, Belfort comes across as a uniquely unlikable (and unrepentant) man. Fourthly, the whole rags-to-riches-to-rags again tale seems at times dangerously close to suggesting that a big house, a fast car, a blonde wife and a steady supply of hookers and drugs really are the keys to happiness - the only tragedy is that the life had to end. Finally, everything in the film seems over-the-top: not just DiCaprio's acting, but the language, the drug-taking, the nudity, even the dumb-ass special effects when the characters get stuck in a storm while at sea. This is not a movie that makes its points subtly. It's loud and long; and not a patch on the quixotic 'King of Comedy', the elegiac 'Raging Bull', the dark and fantastical 'Taxi Driver', and the other works that made Scorcese's reputation back when he still knew how to direct a film.