Very good but very overlong

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2014)

The Wolf of Wall Street has a cracking script, superb acting, top notch technical work in all departments and masterly direction binding the wonderful ingredients together. The sheer exuberance and energy behind most scenes indicate that all involved had a whale of a time making this movie. Its extravagance of style matches the total lack of scruple and restraint on the part of the title character, Jordan Belfort.
Why not give it a perfect 10 out of 10? Well, the sheer length. It really is not necessary to have a three hour movie when the subject matter is less than epic. Much of it is shamelessly squalid and we really don't need multiple episodes of sexual excess and drug overdosing to rub the truth in. You can see any number of scenes which are redundant as far as story development and character portrayal are concerned.
Scorsese has been criticised for glamorising the lifestyle of a most unsavoury crook. I think that is beyond ridiculous. You might as well criticise real life for being unfair. The anti-hero, brilliantly portrayed by DiCaprio, did have a fantastic time at other people's expense and has largely got away with it. He served a short prison term for numerous monstrous and pitiless frauds which would have merited multiple life sentences in any decent system of justice. He is now enjoying a globe trotting career making loads more money as an inspirational speaker. He is subject to a restitution order to make a trivial contribution to the brutal losses he inflicted on his victims. But he is failing to repay even that penalty! Blame the feeble US justice system. Well, maybe not. We don't want too many bent financiers, bankers and politicians to serve huge prison terms, do we? One reviewer noted the contrast between the anti-hero's lifestyle (travelling on a 170 foot yacht and private jets) and the life of the dogged, incorruptible investigator who pursues him...and travels on the New York subway. You can hardly blame Scorsese for telling the truth. When I see the salaries paid to British police and other investigators compared with the wealth enjoyed by the scum they try to bring to justice, it restores my faith in the decency of so many "ordinary" people.
The only moral and storytelling criticism I would offer is that Scorsese shows very little of the impact of Belfort on others. True, his first wife's grief at his shameless whoring and philandering is very touching, if briefly portrayed. When he lost his first job on Wall Street, she had been willing to sell her engagement ring to make ends meet. Her loyalty and genuine unselfish love were betrayed. His second wife and their children are also shown as suffering from his insane drug abuse and promiscuity. But I could feel only a fraction of the sympathy for her that I felt for his first wife. Wife No 2 knew, or should have known in one part of her mind, that she was marrying a ruthless cheating chancer. But no doubt she deluded herself that he would settle down, turn over a new leaf, etc.
As for all Belfort's financial victims? At best, they are voices on the other end of a telephone sales pitch. None gets even a cameo appearance to portray the rage and despair they must have felt. Maybe some were rich and could absorb the losses. Maybe some lost everything. Maybe some were driven to suicide, as happened with at least one of Bernie Madoff's victims.
I have not done any digging to see the painful stories behind the Wolf's success. And Scorsese was not making an expose documentary on the mechanics of large scale fraud and the effect on the victims. The focus is quite properly on the title character with the brutally apt nickname. Very few directors could produce such an eyepopping, guilty pleasure.