Great Acting. Fairly Good Direction. Horrible Script.

Rating: 5/10 (27 December 2013)

I found this movie being full of sound and fury, plus a gratuitous amount of drugs and naked women, yet signifying nothing.
The Wolf of Wall Street started out exciting as you are introduced to Jordan Belfort, a young hungry, newly married stockbroker. We slowly start getting sucked into Jordan's rise to riches through unscrupulous methods. Leonardo DiCaprio is charismatic and captivating. Jonah Hill's, Donnie compliments him and the two work brilliantly off of each other.
However, midway through the movie is where the flaws in the script start to show. Jordan's debauchery grows increasingly and I found myself getting bored as it just continued to go on and on with out any real point other than Jordan is a self absorbed prick. He has no realizations or epiphanies about his life, his choices, his family, his friends - nothing. (SPOILER ALERT) Even when his boat sinks and his plane, that was coming to get him crashes, he glosses over it. There is a lost opportunity for deeper insight in Jordan Belfort. This is where I find the characters start to become one dimensional. Jordan tries to clean up his life which fails. Jordan tries not to turn his friends over to the Feds in order to get a lighter sentence - he fails. And I walked away from the movie know nothing about how this affected him - the loss of his wife, his business, ratting out his friends and business associates, serving time in jail...I know nothing and really saw nothing in the acting to give me insight. I left the movie feeling nothing - not even sympathy, empathy or even loathing for Jordan. I was like "eh".
Overall, I found the movie to be on the self-indulgent side and felt it could have been a tighter story with less fluff and more layered characters.