Excellent !

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2013)

For complete review: whatruwatching.wordpress.com
I went to see "The wolf of Wall street" yesterday night. I was with a friend, and really unprepared (I didn't even know the title of the movie or the name of the actors in it an hour before the beginning). Anyways, the tale is about a stock broker (someone whose job is to sell stocks and take commission on it, a kind of salesman actually) who builds his company in the 1990s and makes a huge amount a money out of it. Drugs, prostitution, dirty money are all there to complete the picture! As I have seen it in the movies, and don't own a copy nor was able to take any note, it is a lot harder to cite precise quotations and have a complete scene analysis (I know I am being totally unprofessional here). There are many awesome scenes to take out from this excellent movie. At the beginning of the movie, we see how the main character "morale" was settle during his first day of work by his senior manager that basically say him to take cocaine to stay sharp, to take prostitutes or relieve himself often enough to keep his calm, and not to care about the client: only thing that matters is how much money you make. One thing here is that I don't really want to get into a debate about whether this is all real or not, nor just spit on all traders and stock brokers of Wall street. The important is that during this scene, during which we see the main character (Leonardo DiCaprio) decline wine and cocaine offer, substances he will abuse all along the movie. Jordan Belfort (main character) gets really good at selling anything to anyone, but he also knows how to teach it. He takes some friends from high school for which you can't really say they are smart neither educated, but he teaches them how to sell, and soon becomes the CEO of a fastly growing and hot company. In his own company he is a guru, treated like a semi-god, and the working environment is described as totally decadent (booze, drugs, prostitutes...). I have to acknowledge how funny this movie is, situations are often funny, characters are funny, dialogs are awesome. I was expecting more of a drama, but I enjoyed this light hearted mood of the movie. On the other side of course, some couple scenes between Jordan and his second wife shows what is really going on. And if you stop one minute on Jordan's wife, you can see that she doesn't make much sense, she expects all the money, the parties, the good parts, without the bad parts that are in Jordan's case intimately tied to the good parts: drug addiction, sex addiction, insatiable hunger for money and success. This couple is a key in the movie to, and it is explained at some point that the solution if you have any problem with you wife is "pick up the damn phone" (and make more money). This solution, money, is driving Jordan form A to Z in this movie. The character of Jordan is very inspiring and likable, it is really depicted as a hero, despite all his "side-effects". It is inspiring because after all nobody wants to be left aside, everybody wants the lion's share and be a success, and he is incarnating it perfectly. Seeing this man in action gives you hunger for money and fame ! It depends on which side you are at the end, but it could change your subway trips for a moment after you see the movie.