Great film and worthy of a few Oscars

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2017)

The Wolf of Wall Street takes an interesting look at the life of Wall street broker Jordan Belfort and his rise and fall. The film had and used some its ingredients to make a wildly entertaining film which included exceptional acting, great plot, narration, addictive soundtrack and the rise and fall of the central character in world of Wall street and finance. These elements have been used masterfully by Scorsese in former classics.
Leonardo definitely deserved an Oscar for his performance as he lives the role of a shady Wall Street broker that is corrupted over his tenure as a stockbroker. The first person narrative works brilliantly as we are told Jordan's story. The portrayal of brokers is interesting as cut throat and money grabbing who use on it on all the vices life has to offer. The film excels at showing this lifestyle in excess from hookers, heavy drinking to living in mansions and sailing on yachts. Jonah Hill and the other cast and crew also hit some home runs to make it enjoyable and humorous at times. The achilles heel when it comes to the cast is easily Margot Robbie. While some of the world seems infatuated with her, she was unimpressive and mediocre. She was very annoying and Leonardo had to carry most of their scenes. The film would have benefited from another talented heroine who brought the best out of Leo and could meet his intensity in the scenes.
While this is a great film it also had a few issues that stopped it from being an absolute classic. Scorsese can be creative when he makes his films but in this one it appears his creativity got the better of him and got ahead of itself. So instead of making a carefully coherent film like he has done before it is a film that incorporates unnecessary scenes, dialogue and screen time that distracts from the story. The result is a film that is 3hrs long and scenes that add no value to the plot. Scenes could have easily been reduced in length, the gay orgy scene could have been cut as could the scene with Brad living at his mothers and the list goes on. Cutting these scenes would have made this films great plot richer and less distracting. When I started watching this film I thought this was going be the greatest film Scorsese has ever made but the additional and unneeded scenes changed that. In my humble opinion this is what makes this a great film but not an Iconic film. An entertaining film but not legendary. A strong 8/10 that should have earned a few Oscars.