We've seen the this story before, but it's lost it's emotion

Rating: 6/10 (30 January 2014)

Martin Scorsese has always been the Jewel of New Hollywood, he hasn't burned out like Coppola & Cimino, or softened his image by making giant block busters and family films like Spielberg and Lucas. Even his 2011 film Hugo, while a departure from his normal dark crime films still contained his trademark love of all things cinema. So how did his new film "The Wolf of Wall Street" ad to his legacy? Well quite frankly we've seen this story before, actually we've seen it twice before in his crime masterpiece Goodfellas, and his chilling biopic (and possible greatest film) Raging Bull. The story of a young hot headed male ( Jordan Belfort, Henry Hill, Jake LaMotta) who starts humble while sinking deeper in their respective world (the corruption of Wall Street, the Italian-American Mafia, or Boxing title fights) is a world Scorsese can tell about growing up in the Machismo rich culture of Italian-American New York. But while each re-telling has seen Scorsese improve his technique and the art of the camera, each successive film has become more sterile. Viewing Raging Bull to this day still is a cinematic art piece that shows the negative consequences of the brutal male psyche, and then in Goodfellas, while Henry Hill follows the same path his character is not one to be sympathized much with, and then finally Jordan Belfort, a character that is as smug and unlikable, but is un-noticed when placed in a film with even more unlikeable characters (looking right at Jonah Hill). None of the characters in this film through the plot even allow you to empathize with them draining the film (with a run time of over 2 hours) of any compassion and only leaving the audience in disgust (especially in the current economic recession, not too many want to see the hubris of Stock Brokers). A Dark comedy, the film offers very few actual laughs, and for all the sex going on the background, none of it is actually sexy, just extravagant and over the top. If it were not for Martin Scorsese being the director I probably wouldn't be rating this film as highly . Not to take from Scorsese as I personally love many of his films (Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Casino) and with a resume like his he's allowed to make a few good movies opposed to great ones, which is exactly how to describe The Wolf of Wall Street.