The Wolf of Wall StreetCrime and the law. Right and wrong. Rich and poor. Haves and have nots. Buy and sell. Every day of our lives, you are being sold an idea of what your life should be. Of what you should want. Of what you should have...what you deserve. Entitlement; it's a poison that makes anyone capable of doing evil to their fellows. And worse, we tell ourselves that we have a reason for doing it...that we're "justified". So when the tides of reality come washing in, it looks like the whole world is crashing down around us. But in truth, it's the "chickens come home to roost". Maybe that's the moral of The Wolf of Wall Street...maybe.
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Directed by Martin Scorsese with a screenplay by Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street is adapted from the autobiographical book of the same name by the real Jordan Belfort, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio here. Jordan Belfort was arrested in 1999 for fraud and for stock market manipulation...but not before making millions at the expense of those he exploited, predominantly the investors whose trust he gained. And then, after serving less than three years of hard time (bit of trivia: with actor Tommy Chong as his cellmate), he wrote "The Wolf of Wall Street". The book was a success, and the rights were bought up by DiCaprio, and Belfort made a cool million in return. So, to recap, crime pays...one way or the other, but it shouldn't. But moralizing isn't the whole story of The Wolf of Wall Street; it isn't even half of it. The film opens with an explosion of excess, of vulgarity and decadence, and reminds me of the shock and awe approach of A Clockwork Orange. Are you hardened enough to put up with this for the rest of the film's three hour runtime, audience?! Well...this is just the first of many cinematic acts of legerdemain which Scorsese is preparing to unleash on its audience. A "Three Card Monte" trick designed to exploit its audience's expectations about our protagonist, the values the film "appears" to purport, and how we respond when presented with other moments that in any other film would leave us feeling sympathetic and even, dare I say, identify with our "hero". No, dear readers, for those observant to the game afoot, you can definitely cry out a resounding "no".
It is inescapable to describe The Wolf of Wall Street without comparing it to other films by Scorsese, especially Goodfellas and Casino. These movies all feature crooks as main characters, but crooks who we want to identify with; and why? Because, gosh darn it, they get away with so much of what we might like to get away with, and look good doing it. They rise from humble (or semi-humble) origins to become titans of their industry. They are respected and feared. They all swim in money (sometimes literally) yet have vulnerable, sensitive sides (at least their characterizations do). Even in the midst of their reveries, there are moments of revelation where they come to realize just what is really important in life despite their hedonism...never mind that they are all rats who only got to where they are by thieving from others. After a smart prologue which makes it clear that Jordan has totally descended into a lifestyle of chronic affluenza, our introduction into the life of this soon-to-be Wall Street powerhouse comes by way of a young, bright, yet nervous fella kissing his hairdresser wife, Teresa (Cristin Milioti), while getting off the bus for his first day at L.F. Rothschild. He awkwardly walks into the madhouse that is the cold-calling sales floor, and is given an unorthodox business doctrine by a sleazy broker called Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey), which is all but the same rhetoric Gordon Gekko gave to Bud Fox in Wall Street, that "greed is good". But we've seen all this before; we know that dudes playing fast and loose with the law for the sake of profit are bad, so what makes The Wolf of Wall Street different? Well, that's where the sleight of hand continues, because in truth, not much. We've all heard the stories of greedy investment bankers and white collar crooks who defrauded millions...billions from others. Bernie Madoff. Martin Shkreli. Many...many more. And yes, Jordan Belfort was one of the most infamous. Not unlike guys like Henry Hill or Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal in their own way. Men who used crime--by varying degrees--to further their own ambitions. Why? Because they believed that it was the life that they were always meant for. And they won't let someone who plays by the rules get in their way.
Many have accused The Wolf of Wall Street for, in and of itself, glorifying the lifestyle it appears to condemn. It is a film replete with copious nudity, depictions of depraved sexuality, infidelity, rampant illegal substance abuse, crude humor, and excessive foul language. (The Wolf of Wall Street actually held the record for the most instances of swearing in a movie for a time.) And it is constant and (in most cases) without meaningful repercussions...or is it? I believe that the joke is on the audience here. Everything seems enticing--the glitz, the glamour, the sexiness of it all. Jordan is a savant at selling people on something, anything--and that is why he gets away with it. He is crass and direct in telling his protegees at the burgeoning "Stratton Oakmont, Inc." how to make sure to never take "no" for an answer, use words as tactical weapons, and how to prey on their victims' (err...clients') insecurities with his phone scripts. And they all do it without any sense of shame. And they get rich for doing it. And they turn their Wall Street office into a deviant playground--every excess is abundant. I mean, who wouldn't want to go to work every day and party like a rock star?! And therein lies the secret to Jordan's--and every other conman's--secret to success. People have been told what to value, what wealth is, all of their lives, in movies, on the TV, by politicians, and so on. It isn't anything other than the all-consuming urge for more, more, more! After all, consider that every single commercial is designed to prey on your self-esteem. You need this thing, and here's why. This is at the root of an example which Jordan uses to illustrate just why his scheme works. He uses a ballpoint pen as a prop, and tells his hucksters to sell him the pen, testing to see if they have the business acumen to get at just what it is that drive people. Always the need to have something that they think that they need but really don't.
Like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street moves amazingly fast despite its runtime. It rockets us from scene to scene, each crisis and victory in Jordan's meteoric rise in his concrete jungle dominion. There is no doubt that he is predisposed to vice. There is no surprise when his next ex-Mrs. Belfort, Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie), shows up at a party and he shamelessly flirts with her--in front of his wife--calls her up, and cheats on Teresa with her, again and again. He sees in her a kindred spirit of depravity; she's no saint, and when she throws water in his face (again and again) for cheating on her, her contempt rings a bit hollow. After all, she knew he was married, but that didn't stop her from sleeping with him, so her indignation seems mighty hypocritical. Their relationship is remarkably similar to the one between Elvira and Tony Montana in Scarface; she is just the newest acquisition in Jordan's never ending drive to consume all. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Wolf of Wall Street shares more than a few things in common with Scarface, another Oliver Stone picture like Wall Street. Once the FCC and the FBI--by way of a virtuous investigator named Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler)--start breathing down Jordan's neck, he starts laundering his money in Switzerland through increasingly outrageous means to get the money into the country. And even though he's given an out that will help him avoid (more) serious prison time, his pride gets the better of him, like Tony Montana, and he makes the dumb decision that will be the beginning of the end for him. See, he would have been required to step down from Stratton Oakmont to make this strategy work. Stratton Oakmont--the glorified shell company he started along with his criminal comrade, Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), which is nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme in a tie, exploiting clients' expectations of "integrity" in lieu of sound business practices. (One should always be weary of a business that feels compelled to advertise that it possesses "integrity" and ask why instead.) And perhaps in the best scene in the movie, he prepares to give his resignation on the sales floor to his team. This is where The Wolf of Wall Street puts on its most magical of acts, in my opinion. We see him giving the tearful farewell to his equally tearful sales team. He recounts a story about one of his founding sales members and her trials with money before he gave her a sign on bonus five times what she was asking for to pay her son's tuition. It is so loaded with emotion that it smacks of sentimentality. And when he decides that he won't back down and decides to stay, everyone shouts "hurrah" and yields to primal chanting and partying once more; and Jordan is the hero of the day once more. That's the beauty of this scene. The audience is tempted to forget, for just a moment, that this pack of wolves include the same sleazebags who Jordan recruited at a diner, all with history of dealing drugs and other crimes left unspoken. These are not truly needy souls busting their butts day in and day out to make a living but conmen looking to fleece a new flock of sheep. Later, we get the briefest of glimpses of those very real, everyday folks in a scene near the end of the film, as Agent Denham rides the subway home after taking down Belfort, and espies an elderly couple looking a bit haggard and despondent. This is who Denham is defending--people like you and me, stopping crooks and conmen from carrying on ruining the lives of those who played by the rules and got screwed over by men like Belfort. This is the moment where the film really drives home that men like Jordan Belfort sell an illusion of reality--a deal with the devil, not true prosperity. And it comes at a cost. That cost is you and me. And Scorsese uses his time in The Wolf of Wall Street to see if he can hypnotize us into thinking that it was all just a matter of bad luck as it concerns Jordan's downfall. That he was perhaps a vulnerable, sensitive soul--an illusion reinforced by DiCaprio's natural charisma and talent at conveying a man who wants everything because it is compulsive first and foremost. But read between the lines--and all that implies--and you will truly see a world of madness, where all values are corrupted, where all depth of feeling is traded (publicly, I'm sure) for shallow, fleeting pleasures. And when that sparkle, the fireworks of a life lived too wild at the expense of anyone and everyone fades, only darkness remains. Because that's all that was there the first place.
Recommended for: Fans of a remarkably subversive black comedy and outlandish "biopic" about a genuine scumbag (not the first, not the last) in white collar crime. It would be easy to look at The Wolf of Wall Street as little more than a bunch of debauched scenes about a cadre of corrupt frat boys and miss the bigger point. That point is that all of the glossiness and the needle drops may be meant to put the audience into that same mental place as Jordan Belfort, but not to glamorize his choices. The Wolf of Wall Street demands looking beyond the surface to truly grasp its cautionary message...to not give in to the allure of wealth and know that greed is never good.
It is inescapable to describe The Wolf of Wall Street without comparing it to other films by Scorsese, especially Goodfellas and Casino. These movies all feature crooks as main characters, but crooks who we want to identify with; and why? Because, gosh darn it, they get away with so much of what we might like to get away with, and look good doing it. They rise from humble (or semi-humble) origins to become titans of their industry. They are respected and feared. They all swim in money (sometimes literally) yet have vulnerable, sensitive sides (at least their characterizations do). Even in the midst of their reveries, there are moments of revelation where they come to realize just what is really important in life despite their hedonism...never mind that they are all rats who only got to where they are by thieving from others. After a smart prologue which makes it clear that Jordan has totally descended into a lifestyle of chronic affluenza, our introduction into the life of this soon-to-be Wall Street powerhouse comes by way of a young, bright, yet nervous fella kissing his hairdresser wife, Teresa (Cristin Milioti), while getting off the bus for his first day at L.F. Rothschild. He awkwardly walks into the madhouse that is the cold-calling sales floor, and is given an unorthodox business doctrine by a sleazy broker called Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey), which is all but the same rhetoric Gordon Gekko gave to Bud Fox in Wall Street, that "greed is good". But we've seen all this before; we know that dudes playing fast and loose with the law for the sake of profit are bad, so what makes The Wolf of Wall Street different? Well, that's where the sleight of hand continues, because in truth, not much. We've all heard the stories of greedy investment bankers and white collar crooks who defrauded millions...billions from others. Bernie Madoff. Martin Shkreli. Many...many more. And yes, Jordan Belfort was one of the most infamous. Not unlike guys like Henry Hill or Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal in their own way. Men who used crime--by varying degrees--to further their own ambitions. Why? Because they believed that it was the life that they were always meant for. And they won't let someone who plays by the rules get in their way.
Many have accused The Wolf of Wall Street for, in and of itself, glorifying the lifestyle it appears to condemn. It is a film replete with copious nudity, depictions of depraved sexuality, infidelity, rampant illegal substance abuse, crude humor, and excessive foul language. (The Wolf of Wall Street actually held the record for the most instances of swearing in a movie for a time.) And it is constant and (in most cases) without meaningful repercussions...or is it? I believe that the joke is on the audience here. Everything seems enticing--the glitz, the glamour, the sexiness of it all. Jordan is a savant at selling people on something, anything--and that is why he gets away with it. He is crass and direct in telling his protegees at the burgeoning "Stratton Oakmont, Inc." how to make sure to never take "no" for an answer, use words as tactical weapons, and how to prey on their victims' (err...clients') insecurities with his phone scripts. And they all do it without any sense of shame. And they get rich for doing it. And they turn their Wall Street office into a deviant playground--every excess is abundant. I mean, who wouldn't want to go to work every day and party like a rock star?! And therein lies the secret to Jordan's--and every other conman's--secret to success. People have been told what to value, what wealth is, all of their lives, in movies, on the TV, by politicians, and so on. It isn't anything other than the all-consuming urge for more, more, more! After all, consider that every single commercial is designed to prey on your self-esteem. You need this thing, and here's why. This is at the root of an example which Jordan uses to illustrate just why his scheme works. He uses a ballpoint pen as a prop, and tells his hucksters to sell him the pen, testing to see if they have the business acumen to get at just what it is that drive people. Always the need to have something that they think that they need but really don't.
Like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street moves amazingly fast despite its runtime. It rockets us from scene to scene, each crisis and victory in Jordan's meteoric rise in his concrete jungle dominion. There is no doubt that he is predisposed to vice. There is no surprise when his next ex-Mrs. Belfort, Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie), shows up at a party and he shamelessly flirts with her--in front of his wife--calls her up, and cheats on Teresa with her, again and again. He sees in her a kindred spirit of depravity; she's no saint, and when she throws water in his face (again and again) for cheating on her, her contempt rings a bit hollow. After all, she knew he was married, but that didn't stop her from sleeping with him, so her indignation seems mighty hypocritical. Their relationship is remarkably similar to the one between Elvira and Tony Montana in Scarface; she is just the newest acquisition in Jordan's never ending drive to consume all. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Wolf of Wall Street shares more than a few things in common with Scarface, another Oliver Stone picture like Wall Street. Once the FCC and the FBI--by way of a virtuous investigator named Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler)--start breathing down Jordan's neck, he starts laundering his money in Switzerland through increasingly outrageous means to get the money into the country. And even though he's given an out that will help him avoid (more) serious prison time, his pride gets the better of him, like Tony Montana, and he makes the dumb decision that will be the beginning of the end for him. See, he would have been required to step down from Stratton Oakmont to make this strategy work. Stratton Oakmont--the glorified shell company he started along with his criminal comrade, Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), which is nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme in a tie, exploiting clients' expectations of "integrity" in lieu of sound business practices. (One should always be weary of a business that feels compelled to advertise that it possesses "integrity" and ask why instead.) And perhaps in the best scene in the movie, he prepares to give his resignation on the sales floor to his team. This is where The Wolf of Wall Street puts on its most magical of acts, in my opinion. We see him giving the tearful farewell to his equally tearful sales team. He recounts a story about one of his founding sales members and her trials with money before he gave her a sign on bonus five times what she was asking for to pay her son's tuition. It is so loaded with emotion that it smacks of sentimentality. And when he decides that he won't back down and decides to stay, everyone shouts "hurrah" and yields to primal chanting and partying once more; and Jordan is the hero of the day once more. That's the beauty of this scene. The audience is tempted to forget, for just a moment, that this pack of wolves include the same sleazebags who Jordan recruited at a diner, all with history of dealing drugs and other crimes left unspoken. These are not truly needy souls busting their butts day in and day out to make a living but conmen looking to fleece a new flock of sheep. Later, we get the briefest of glimpses of those very real, everyday folks in a scene near the end of the film, as Agent Denham rides the subway home after taking down Belfort, and espies an elderly couple looking a bit haggard and despondent. This is who Denham is defending--people like you and me, stopping crooks and conmen from carrying on ruining the lives of those who played by the rules and got screwed over by men like Belfort. This is the moment where the film really drives home that men like Jordan Belfort sell an illusion of reality--a deal with the devil, not true prosperity. And it comes at a cost. That cost is you and me. And Scorsese uses his time in The Wolf of Wall Street to see if he can hypnotize us into thinking that it was all just a matter of bad luck as it concerns Jordan's downfall. That he was perhaps a vulnerable, sensitive soul--an illusion reinforced by DiCaprio's natural charisma and talent at conveying a man who wants everything because it is compulsive first and foremost. But read between the lines--and all that implies--and you will truly see a world of madness, where all values are corrupted, where all depth of feeling is traded (publicly, I'm sure) for shallow, fleeting pleasures. And when that sparkle, the fireworks of a life lived too wild at the expense of anyone and everyone fades, only darkness remains. Because that's all that was there the first place.
Recommended for: Fans of a remarkably subversive black comedy and outlandish "biopic" about a genuine scumbag (not the first, not the last) in white collar crime. It would be easy to look at The Wolf of Wall Street as little more than a bunch of debauched scenes about a cadre of corrupt frat boys and miss the bigger point. That point is that all of the glossiness and the needle drops may be meant to put the audience into that same mental place as Jordan Belfort, but not to glamorize his choices. The Wolf of Wall Street demands looking beyond the surface to truly grasp its cautionary message...to not give in to the allure of wealth and know that greed is never good.