Possibly the best of 2014

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2014)

My first thought afterwards was ' wow a lot of people, particularly men, are going to walk away from this and say "yeah I wanna be a stock broker too"! regardless of the message told through this movie '. Admittedly I felt the same way, especially seeing Jordan Belfort and his colleagues enjoying themselves so much. I mean c'mon booze, hookers, lavish parties, drugs, good times, who doesn't want that; at least a little bit? But that's the hook all sales jobs promise: if you work hard, don't be discouraged by failures and have the ambition to succeed then you will. Because everyone can be a millionaire right? Wrong. Not everyone can be otherwise millionaires would be everywhere. Truth is you can bust your guts and you may not make anywhere as much as you desired. Big bosses need bums in seats to make them money not you.
And that's exactly what Jordan Belfort does. He even admits this during the film. Of course the commission paid to his workers made them a decently living but the real income goes to Belfort. And he makes a lot! To much to know what to do with.
Through all the funny situations (and there is plenty of those) we see Belfort and co. revelling in greed and success. This obvious draws the attention of the law and it's their stupidity that becomes their undoing, despite some very lucky turns of fortunate beforehand.
The first lesson I learnt from this movie is to name your price and get out when you reach it. That's what a strategically minded investor would do instead of being greedy.
The second lesson is if you're doing something illegal and you draw attention to yourself you will get caught eventually. Not if but when.
It does have some shortcomings. For the sake of entertainment what they actually sell and how they do it is glossed over because the focus is upon what happens, not why. I also didn't like the pace of the film as it has so much to tell a lot of it is rushed, which explains why they gloss over details for the sake of timing.
This is a thoroughly entertaining movie about making money that has more relevance in this decade than prior films before it.