needs a sharper, more precise scalpel

Rating: 7/10 (1 February 2014)

A young man gets power drunk on money, and the drugs and sex it affords him, while manipulating stocks and shares.
The Wolf of Wall Street is in one sense Goodfellas transported to a different arena. Adrenaline junkies do bad things to achieve their high, abuse drugs and women along the way, and then give up their erstwhile allies to avoid a harsh prison sentence, all the while regretting not their bad deeds, but the fact that they have to live like "ordinary schmucks."
This parallel narrative has its good points, as The Wolf of Wall Street has the same outrageous behaviour, quiet malevolence, and absurd comedy as the gangster flick. Where is falls down is that it over-indulges those excesses in repetition - every time they sell stocks it is basically the same scam. There is too much speechifying; Jason says the same thing, and too much of it, in every speech. The film also fails to show the social ramifications of Wall Street malfeasance. Scorscese is drawn to characters who live in excess, and in doing so both enthrall and appall. Unfortunately, he seems taken in by Jordan, when a little bit more objective distance might have layered this narrative in a more satisfying way. There is a small flavour of this at the end, with the FBI agent's gaze on the subway train. However, it is a fleeting moment of an element that needed to be laced in more. Notwithstanding the fact that Jordan's amoral deeds are laid bare, we are to a certain extent invited to sympathize with him, by virtue of the amount of time he spends on screen and the exclusion of time given to the consequences of his actions.
With Goodfellas Scorscese re-invented the mafia film, but The Wolf of Wall Street, while being an entertaining ride, does not give us anything that Wall Street, or even Rogue Trader, has given us already, except with less pomp.
In short a good, but not great addition to Scorscese's oeuvre.