"Goodfellas" in "Wall Street": Wolves in Armani's Clothing...

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2016)

"Why don't you boys go down to Wall Street and find some real crooks?"
This is Tuddy Cicero speaking to the FBI men while they arrest his brother Paulie near the end of "Goodfellas". It's very revealing when 'ordinary' gangsters believe they don't hold a candle to the Wall Street guys. And after the 2008 financial crisis, the Goldman Sachs and Madoff scandals, it's hard to prove them wrong. 23 years later, Martin Scorsese, the greatest gangster movie director, finally did justice to Cicero's words and took on the 'bigger players', through his adaptation of Jordan Belfort's autobiographical book.
Jordan Belfort is a guy who, as far back as he could remember, always dreamed of making money and found an easier way than being a gangster: he became a trader. He wasn't more handsome or charismatic than Henry Hill (as portrayed in the films), he just studied and got the passport to Wall Street. He could do what Hill did in all legality proving Al Capone's quote that "Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class". In fact, he almost made the Goodfellas look closer to Robin Hood figures, at least, they bribed a few working-class men.
"Goodfellas" was craftsmanship compared to what these 'wolves' in Armani's clothing did: elevating theft to an industrial level, about making millions in a few hours, and money out of virtually nothing, which is the essence of finance. It reminded me of these courses in business schools teaching how to make risk-less money through arbitrage. What Belfort makes is more straightforward, he sells worthless action to blue-collar people and then, it's the traditional supply-and-demand rules, the more people buy, the more others want to buy, the value increases and when it goes high enough, you sell. What then happens to your client is besides your concerns.
Call it unethical, cynical or criminal, but this is the world's holistic system. And the only talent that can make you rich quicker than talented and deserving people is being a good salesman. Because, when you have to sell ****, just sell dreams. A good trader sells securities and buys capital, he sells promising values and makes real money, and it takes some communicative skills to make that possible. And that's the key to these characters' "likability", by cinematic standards; they know how to communicate their appeal, that's the 'Gekko' syndrome.
The screenplay, written by Terence Winter, is full of these pep-talk speeches echoing the famous "Greed is good" tirade and we have such motivational ones as "there's no nobility in poverty" (also borrowed from Oliver Stone's film). "Wall Street" set the tone for the financial-themed movies, and there's a reason these films fascinate us: we all love money, we all dream of being rich, if we dream of something else, it's liable to have wealth in the process. There's no potential dream that doesn't involve in a way or another, sex, money or power, these movies speak to us, in a very personal level.
I often found myself thinking that an average guy must make money to have sex with a beautiful girl, and a beautiful girl can get a rich guy easier than an average one. The film made me understand why: basically, a man's main currency is the money he makes, even if you don't dream of banging hot girls, you won't earn your nagging wife's respect if your pockets are empty, and a woman's currency is her beauty, her body and her willingness to use them. Not only Margot Robbie's frontal nudity is not shocking, but it's also a necessity. When you have these guys indecently throwing lobsters, wiping their ass with paper bills or harassing flight attendants, it's just their money language, they can get away with it. Full nudity is the woman showing her best asset in that decadent world, it's a fair trade.
And only Scorsese could have portrayed such loathsome and amoral characters with that flamboyant, dizzying and electrifying style. The characters are sleazy, have nicknames as pathetic as their intentions, as if behind every trader, there was a crook sleeping, but they strangely appeal to us. There Scorsese's obligatory morally corrupt protagonist rising high to fall hard, a multiple-time sinner who's given a few moments of redemption but won't go until the sun really burns his wings. Leonardo Di Caprio finally brings a performance where he can show a wide range of emotions, be charismatic and pathetic within the same five minutes and the credits also go to the gripping realism of the portrayal of cocaine, crack and Quaalude uses.
No movie ever portrayed drugs and lust, and the combination of both in such a straight-forward way, and that was essential because there's got to be a catch behind such a dreamy lifestyle. This ambivalence goes further as the title was borrowed from an unflattering portrait of the young yuppie go-getter, yet it gave him the perfect publicity to build his reputation. Did things change much? After he cooperated with the FBI, he served a few years in prison and became a motivational speaker. In the film's closing scene, you can see people looking at him with respect and adoration. The joke is on us.
From Leo to the surprisingly good Jonah Hill as his right-hand man Donnie Azoff, from Matthew McConaughey as his first tutor, Kyle Chandler as the FBI agent or Jean Dujardin as the suave and crooked Swiss banker, the film is some actors' finest hours, and that includes Rob Reiner as Leo's father and the promising Margot Robbie. "The Wolf of Wall Street" is Scorsese back to his roots and one of his best.
And what a cruel injustice that Roger Ebert, Scorsese' number one fan, who loved every single film he made with Leo and adored "Goodfellas", didn't live up to see the culmination of the actor/director's duo and the film in the same vein of greatness than its glorious predecessor.