ironhorse_iv Review of The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street was a pretty crazy movie. Not, only did it sell the pen. The dark comedy concept sold the movie.

[7/10 · 18 June 2014]

If this movie wasn't so outrageous mess up funny. It would be so unlikable to watch. In my opinion, should had been call, 'The Wolves of Wall Street'. Nobody has any morals balls in this movie as every character in this film is pretty greedy liars. They all felt like one-dimensional greed caricatures than human beings. Most of the character really need more well-rounded depth to them. Based on 2007's memoirs, true story of Jordan Belfort. The movie focus on Jordan (Leonardo DiCaprio) rise to a wealthy stockbroker through the use of corruption scams; while under the watchful eyes of the federal government in the 1990s. The black comedy directed by Martin Scorsese, is pretty well-made. Still, it really felt too much of a glamorization of the lifestyle, than a moral tale, in my opinion. It felt like lets show as much f*ck up things as we can for 2 hours, and then in the last few minutes, show the negative results of what happen. It was bit one-sided argument. It made the film seem a bit unrealistic, with how many crude things, these people could get away with. This movie will likely inspiring others to do the same mistakes, rather than teach them, not to do what Belfort did. After all, the real Belfort got paid for this movie, a million dollar and a cameo. Since 2013, the opening of this movie, Belfort hasn't pay enough money back to the victims of his crimes. The U.S. government is not holding Belfort in default of his payments, but it is unclear when the full amount of the mandated restitution will ever be paid by him. He's pretty much, got Scot free in his case, and that really sucks to hear, if he stole money from you. The acting is really alright. Leonardo DiCaprio can really put out the charm. He can also do the yelling, that he been known for. He wasn't afraid of going over the top with this. Still, this role wasn't anything new for him. After all, he played similar characters in both 2013's Great Gatsby and 2002's Catch Me if you can. Instead of playing it straight, he just went 100% crazy with this role with all the sex scenes and drug use. Honestly, with all the drug use, Jordan portray in the film doing, how is this guy even alive? The one person that deeply surprise me was Jonah Hill as his partner in crime, Donny Azoff. You really didn't see this type of acting coming from him. The supporting cast was pretty good for the most part. I have to say, while his premise on film is short, Matthew McConaughey as Mark Hanna, Jordan's mentor, was pretty memorable. The women characters were pretty typecast as trophy wives, money hungry girlfriends, or eye candy hookers, who mostly go around, full frontal nudity, or having sex. If they're not, doing that, they portray as bitchy gold-diggers with no sense of morals. Margot Robbie is a pretty face, but gees, she couldn't act. At the beginning of her presence, she had an Australian accent that made more sense since her aunt is British. Then,out of the blue, you hear this awful screeching New Yorker/New Jersey Guido accent that sounds like something out of Jersey Shore. She couldn't show depth in her character, if Martin Scorsese wanted to. It's really uncomfortable and offended how women were portray in the film. The only female character was somebody to root for, was Aunt Emma (Joanna Lumley), but she ain't no angel. I have to say, for men, at less, we got a counter-protagonist fighting against the antagonist Jordan in Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) who did wonderful in his role. He wasn't one-dimensional pencil pusher, Boy Scout. He was willing to go one on one with Jordan. The movie even have a somewhat moral character in Jordan's father, Max (Rob Reiner) who tries hard to get Jordan to live life, the right way, but always his son to make the mistakes, needed to grow. I love the idea, how Martin Scorsese film it, with the use of wide ends, slow motion and others to show the effects of the drugs or heavy party scenes. The movie really felt like it could had work in a 3D settling. I love how he aged the film for the infomercial sequence to make it look like something that came out in the 1990s. I love all the commercials footage used from Benihana to Steve Madden. The CGI in the film is a bit choppy. You can see, how bad, it was in the storm scenes, but there is rare mistakes made this film. Great use of establish music to set the mood of the film. The humor is a hit or miss. Some of them were really just crude like the homophobic, sexism and racism comments. While, others were pretty clever and funny. I love all the fourth wall jokes with Jordan gives lengthy explanations of Stockbroker terminology; only to drop it midway through. I love pop culture references like Moby Dick, Gordon Gekko, Freaks, James Bond, Willy Wonka and others. The movie had a cluster F-Bomb with 544 uses of the word. Some of them seem natural; while other seem oddly place. This film has the record for the most uses of the word in a fiction film. The movie is 3 hours long with its pacing. You can't really tell, with the pacing, due to not a lot of slow scenes. Still, there were few gags did go on way too much. You can cut the movie to 1hr and 30 minutes, and get the same results. I was deeply surprised, that this movie wasn't NC-17 with its strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language throughout, and for some violence. It's one of the movies that should be. Overall: Well-made movie that was kinda offended, but still watchable.