Pure entertainment.

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2014)

I love this movie, for me it's pure entertainment. It's Casino on Wall Street. Much of the behavior in the film is so funny the theater broke out in loud unison laughter multiple times. This could have been a cautionary tale, one for the wall street movement, but it's not really there. If you look at what this man did, how he led his life, and how unfair it is that he basically goes unpunished, there are so many ways to tell the story, however, here his life is almost really glorified, like in Casino, where the audience is involved in the fun of it all even though people in that film were ultimately being robbed, killed, cheated, abusing drugs etc, you were made to feel it was all somewhat funny. You enjoyed the characters and somewhat gave them a pass therefore it was fun, and OK. Same here, although DiCaprio narrates with guilt and disbelief in his speech to compensate for what is being portrayed as funny. There are a few scenes that remind us of how unfair the world is, especially the ending, where DiCaprio is sent to prison and he's playing tennis, while the FBI agent that got him convicted is shown taking the train home and looking around as the camera focuses in on the rest of the average joe's that have to schlep to work every day, exhausted making it day by day, no excess, no luxury, just life one day at a time, surviving. The impact of this is however lost in the contrast of all the fun, the sex, the drugs that don't seem to physically decimate anyone, the fun you just had watching these guys break all the rules. I love the move, it's pure entertainment, but be careful you could walk out of the theater saying gee i want to live a life like that. Instead of walking out saying what a horrific way to lead your life, possibly killing someone with a car, ruining your marriage, divorcing twice, having to rat on your friends, nearly dying in the ocean, spending time in jail, becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol. That would be a different movie I think.