A flawed but marvelous explosion of incredible insanity

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2015)

The Wolf Of Wall Street will be loved by some while others will be absolutely mortified. I'm more in the former direction. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a fantastically appalling stockbroker who lives the high life thanks to making millions illegally, but soon the authorities become aware of his illegal activities. Divisive but acclaimed overall, TWOWS, with its depictions of swearing, greed, sex, drug use, moral corruption and bad behaviour does not know the art of taste or the art of subtlety, but if you can look past its lack of taste, it's a relentless, ruthlessly effective and devilishly demented black comedy which is less a movie, more a machine gun helicopter blasting its way through every tasteful movie studio around. Disregarding a short running time, a restraint on unnecessary scenes and examinations of the consequences maybe wasn't the best idea, but this is overall a slightly brilliant movie which, as a cinematic whole, has got it all. People may forget how brilliantly made it is.
TWOWS is quite blatantly the work of a master. With every frame exploding with cinematic skill and precision, this movie looks amazing and there's not an arbitrary shot to be found. In terms of scripting, despite having over 500 uses of the F word it never feels gratuitous, and with amazing dark humour, clever character development and badass lines galore the screenplay refuses to be boxed in. Leonardo DiCaprio has never been better on screen, while Jonah Hill makes it pretty obvious he is destined to win an Oscar at some point. Matthew McConaughey is only in it for 10 minutes, but he makes a huge impact. There isn't really a solitary bad performance here. It dips after the halfway point before finding its feet again, and there are many scenes which aren't necessary and feel like they're prolonging the film for the sake of having an obnoxious length, which means the delirious heights the film sometimes reaches are never sustained for long enough. Even so, this is one of 2013's finest and deserved the Oscar nods.
8/10