A crazy, satirical account of over indulgence.

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2014)

Like Goodfellas and Casino, Martin Scorsese goes back to his portrayal of big time criminals, but this time taking place in the worlds most notorious financial district, Wall Street. Stylistically, we see the familiar devices including freeze frames, elaborate set design and camera set ups, self aggrandising narration from the main character and of course, a story of extreme excess. Money is of course the driving force for all the things it can afford, in this case, lots of sports cars, designer suits, a high maintenance blonde wife, a mansion, drugs, prostitutes etc. This is the life of Wall Street trader and big time swindler Jordan Belfort (Leonardo Di Caprio).
Scorsese does what he does best and portrays another character highly addicted to excess by showing his rise to being a big time swindler and all the excesses that comes along with it, to his world falling apart as the huge amounts of drugs impairs his focus and others around him, as well as attracting the attention of tenacious FBI agent Denham (Kyle Chandler), who eventually brings down Belfort's empire and puts him in a position where he has to 'rat' on his fellow cohorts for a lesser sentence.
The film seems to have gained an equal amount of praise and criticism. Much of the criticism is directed towards how it is a shallow and empty film which does not do enough to criticise Belfort's lifestyle. I personally thought that much of Scorsese's intention was to plunge the viewer into Belfort's over-indulgent, manic, materialistic world where money transcends morals and everything else meaningful. Scorcese and writer Terence Winter do not hold back at all. The office parties which include prostitutes and drugs in monumental proportions, the long speeches glorifying the 'greed is good' philosophy which makes Gordon Gekko look like Castro, the general obnoxious and misogynistic behaviour drug induced or sometimes through just being high on power are all portrayed to be so over the top that it becomes an entertaining and satirical look a life of over excess. Many scenes can be highlighted, like Mark Hanna ( Matthew McConaughey) who is Belfort's mentor explains the importance of masturbating twice a day to cope with the stresses of being a broker. There are many scenes of drug taking which gets so excessive, he becomes a coked up mess. One extended scene when he takes a rare sleeping pill which effects an important conversation on a payphone about how the FBI have Belforts phones tapped. When he eventually looses the ability to speak and control of his bodily functions, we see him crawl to his sports car to drive home to try and get his business associate Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) off his phone. What we see is a scene so crazy and shouty, not to mention tragically pathetic, it is manically hilarious. Basically, I think we are invited into look at this mans over the top life and rather than be disgusted at his behaviour, I found it to be so OTT to the point of farcical. The narration of Belfort's schemes are intentionally confusing as financial schemes often are to swindle people who do not know any better. We hear Belfort attempt to explain to us exactly how he is doing this, but during a piece to camera narration, he directly assumes to the audience that he has lost us. I do admit some people will find this film a difficult watch as 3 hours is a lot of time invested into such an unlikable character. I personally don't mind watching films about characters I don't like as there is a side of me that is curious to see how they live and how they justify such appalling morals and behaviour. The fact that there is no moral judgement or no realisation of the Belfort's errors only reflects the honesty that people like that are borderline sociopaths who do not give a s**t about anyone but themselves. A scene which highlights this is one of his rousing speeches towards the end where he claims he helped people when they applied for his firm. He says in what seems like a genuine heartfelt way that he loves each and everyone of one of his employees. However, he does not show this when he rats them out at the end so he can get a three year sentence. It shows he is a coward and that he has no real love for anyone.
Like most films, Scorsese gets the best out of his actors. Leonardo Di Caprio puts on a visceral over the top performance which is probably the performance of his career. Jonah Hill is proving more than ever that he is not just a Judd Apatow regular, but a versatile actor to be taken seriously. He plays someone that is equally unlikable and chauvinistic and does it with aplomb. Sometimes Scorsese takes risks with newcomers, but I think it pays off with ex Neighbour's star Margot Robbie. Will she be the new face of god-awful romantic comedies or will she continue to pick up credible roles? I believe she has the talent to do the latter. Also Rob Reiner is great as 'Mad' Max Belfort, Jordan Belfort's father. He maybe mad, but is often the voice of reason. Matthew McConaughey has some of the films most memorable moments, even though he has around 5 minutes of screen time.
It may not quite rank along the dizzying heights of Scorsese's best work, but it sure does in my opinion work in it's own right. It is a significant film of it's time where people are increasingly loosing the trust of the banking system. I think this portrays the madness and the depravity of what went on and still continues to happen in Wall Street while still being entertaining and often very funny.
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