Raunchy and enthralling; Wolf of Wall Street packs a solid punch

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2013)

This Review Contains Spoilers
Let me get right to the point here; Martin Scorsese's newest motion picture The Wolf of Wall Street is a thunderous roller-coaster of debauchery, corruption, capitalism, sex, and the emotional consequences of high-stake living; the tale of Jordan Belfort and his greed is not for everyone. DiCaprio rockets into the sky as Belfort, giving us a performance driven by intense passion and persuasion but also with a sense of unfathomable dishonesty and immorality. He is a character driven by success and the will to do wrong to others for his own gain; nothing will stand in his way when it comes to mountains of money and self indulgences. He is a sex fiend, a drug enthusiast, a bloated fabricator. He is a man you love to hate, and hate to love.
Before Belfort acquired his fortunes he was a lone stockbroker of Wall Street. He worked for Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) and became intrigued by the luxurious lifestyle he possessed. After losing his job on Black Monday, he makes acquaintance with a bumptious and mannerless parasite named Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and together they open up Stratton Oakmont; a ruthless off the wall organization where you cannot hang up the phone until you have your clients by the neck and the money in your pockets. This insane practice grows until Stratton Oakmont becomes a billionaire organization and causes wrinkles for everyone involved. The money gets to everyone's heads. The FBI becomes curious, yet Belfort says he has nothing to hide. The worst is when wrongdoing devours Belfort and his addictive personality affects his wife and his child. There are some very intense and hard to watch scenes; such as when Belfort loses his temper after having one sided sex with his wife Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie.) He beats her, and in the heat of anger rips open a sofa cushion to find his stash of coke and snorts all of it at once. His wife threatens with divorce and custody of their child and in his drug infused frenzy he tries to kidnap his own daughter; but he doesn't make it far in his intoxicated state.
This is the kind of brash yet fierce filmmaking Scorsese is famous for; he gives us characters and situations that are shocking and hard to pull away from. Some may groan at the movie's lengthy three hour runtime, but while your twiddling at your thumbs and looking at your phone's clock, I'm going to be sitting down and watching a damn fine movie which is what The Wolf of Wall Street really is and nothing more.
from http://bbman94.wix.com/brandonsmoviecorner