The film is a graphic riot of sex orgies and drug-enhanced mayhem - But what's the point?

Rating: 5/10 (11 April 2016)

I was really looking forward to this film, given that it is directed by one of my all-time favourite directors, Martin Scorsese, and boasts a stellar cast including the ever improving Leonardo De Caprio who played a blinder in last year's Django Unchained. As you might expect from Scorsese, 'Wolf' is certainly a visual feast and much of it is quite entertaining to watch. It is in a different class to American Hustle, but like 'Hustle', it suffers from a lack of 'audience empathy' for the lead character.
There are endless films which have portrayed utterly unpleasant characters in leading roles and the trick of a good movie-maker is to know how to make us 'feel' for these 'bad' people – who might even be rapists or killers – as then we can understand, if not entirely excuse or forgive their transgressions. Sometimes we will see such villains get their comeuppance, which satisfies our sense of right and wrong, and occasionally the characters themselves become remorseful and change their previously evil ways. In some instances, 'baddies' continue their evil ways, but we are shown that even in the worst of people, there is something that we, the audience, can understand, that will encourage us to understand their horrific behaviour and to gain a modicum of our sympathy. Maybe they have severe mental problems, and so on. Hannibal Lecter is a good example as are Scorsese's movies, such as Goodfellas, Casino and Gangs of New York.
But Wolf is not one of these. How can we have any sympathy or feeling for someone who delights in cheating mainly poor, working class folk in Wall Street security scams; indulging in the most extreme, drug- fuelled sexual misogyny; horrific wife-beating, amongst many more dire acts of deprivation? We are somehow supposed to admire this venal slime ball, who lives a life that even Caligula would have envied. Eventually, he even betrays his closest friends in an attempt to save his own skin. Sure, he ends up in jail, but considering all the ordinary folk who he swindled, 3 years wasn't exactly very long and as the film closes he was back to his old tricks, albeit in a different country where there were still some innocent punters who hadn't heard of his malevolent and immoral ways.
The film is a graphic riot of sex orgies and drug-enhanced mayhem and there can be no better director than Scorsese to provide this kind of gratuitous feast to audiences presumably hungry for such soft-porn material. But much as one may be inclined to enjoy the scenes playing before our titillated and shocked eyes, we have to wonder whether it is all so necessary. What is the point? I for one do not believe that anyone could have been quite so outrageously reprehensible in his lifestyle as we are led to believe the Wolf was. If he was that bad, how in earth could he have ever got his act together sufficiently to cheat yet more people and run his huge, despicably corrupt organisation?
De Caprio throws everything but the kitchen sink into his performance, but to me, it was totally over the top and frankly, unbelievable and without credibility. I think his role would have been more meaningful, and would even have gained some measure of sympathy from us if he had been more laid back, and not quite so one-dimensionally, utterly heartless, selfish and evil. If he had shown us a little more about what made him tick, and what changed him from being a decent, hard-working married man, into this horrific, drug-addled, sex- monster, I truly believe it would have been a far more enjoyable and satisfying two hours of entertainment. But clearly the scriptwriters and director didn't want to go that way and it is a shame, as it could have been a much better movie if they had.
The very first two IMDb reviews say: Soul-Sucking Mind-Poison "DON'T PAY TO SEE THIS MOVIE!" "Con Man cons Scorsese & DiCaprio" They go on and on, one after the other. I'm glad I'm not alone, as the professional reviewers are still raving about it. Raving mad - more like.