Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Written by: Terence Winter

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler

Rating: [5/5]

Blind pursuit of wealth after a certain point ceases to center on the money itself, but rather the power and control it provides. It surely explains why certain billionaires do not slip away and live in paradise but would rather keep their names in the spotlight for as long as they can. The addiction shifts from accumulation to maintaining this sense of importance that The Wolf Wall Street captures so brilliantly as we enter this world of horrific debauchery in style. 

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives in New York City to make it in the stock broker business where he learns to operate as a successful salesman. When a stock market crash completely changes the landscape he finds success in selling penny stocks, which supply a bigger commission allowing him to build up an empire not putting the customers first but rather lining his pockets. 

As someone who works in the financial services industry, battling the perception of everyone in this line of work operating as a sleazebag just trying to sell their mother for a profit certainly remains and The Wolf of Wall Street certainly does not help. This film certainly does not paint a pretty picture but it remains one displaying the ugly truth underneath a lifestyle of glitz and glamour in a manner that attracts a certain type of person and the way Martin Scorsese and his team unearths it makes for the ultimate American odyssey on greed. 

Much like Scorsese’s other crime films, he has no issue depicting how one could enter these circumstances with the best of intentions but just how quickly things can turn south morally. Money and power allow Jordan a life where he can receive anything he would like in life. Every pleasure and fetish receives a level of satisfaction he can simply throw money at and when seeing everything these men do when given free reign would terrify the common person. Whether or not what gets displayed comes layered with a hint of exaggeration, the point remains and it leaves quite the impact. 

The art of selling as described in this film displays some of the sleaziest work I have ever seen within this industry. Everything the regulators of the industry seek to accomplish through their oversight comes under the hope of protecting consumers from the nefarious whims of individuals selling them things to turn a quick profit. What we see with what Jordan learns and then teaches others displays the art of selling as a sexual act where someone involved will end up getting on the receiving end. Everything these brokers do works in the effort to end up on the giving end and take what they can. This occurs not only in the higher-end firms where they sell the larger stocks to the clients, as displayed by the highly memorable scene Jordan shares with Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) but it only gets worse when he begins to dive into penny stocks. 

In telling this story, Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter know they have some dense material to cover as the average person does not know everything regarding stocks and the true nature of the nefarious acts on display by Belfort and his team. It even gets to points where Belfort begins to explain things to the camera about the illegality of his work but decides that the audience does not really need to know, but just states none of it was good. A choice that left me wanting to know more about the specifics personally, but a strong narrative decision because what they did does not necessarily matter but rather how they went about it. The level of arrogance on display simply terrifies me in the way these men operated with such impunity and everything that transpires with Stratton Oakmont only continues to emphasize it. 

On each day, Belfort stands in front of his hundreds of brokers who not only view him as a leader, but as a god for the way he inspires them to take the bull by the horns. The man attacks the microphone and gets them riled up in a way that resembles Mob Rule in ancient Rome. Belfort creates this unquenchable hungry crowd that would legitimately die for this man, which makes those scenes of him up at the microphone both hilarious but also incredibly sad as well. These scenes carry such power but also display DiCaprio at his very best. 

Electing the best performance of an actor with the filmography of DiCaprio, who has an embarrassment of riches to choose from, but what he manages to do as Jordan Belfort remains his greatest work. Through this performance, he combines his natural charm and good looks that lull the audience into this scheme in the same way he does the other characters. He captures this extreme smugness to him in scenes where he aims to disrespect others, but also plays into the hysterical physical comedy this film demands of him. The scene where he takes way too many quaaludes truly sums it all up. DiCaprio enters this story as an innocent pretty boy and fully dives right into this debauchery as a pro by going all in on everything this role asks of him showing he was game, and we stand as the beneficiary of it. 

Scorsese through this film creates a narrative about this unquenchable accumulation of possessions, power, and the control of others that some have criticized for not condemning these actions enough. A silly belief in my estimation considering if someone watches what transpires in this film and believes this lifestyle to be anything other than a hellscape where the man has to take enough tranquilizer to kill a horse just to make it to lunch then we have bigger issues. The debauchery speaks for itself in all reality, but it also displays the lack of satisfaction it brings in life. We see this not only in the instance where Belfort has an out in all of this, but also in his personal life. The man could have the most gorgeous wife in Naomi Lapaglia, portrayed very famously by Margot Robbie, and would still prefer to pay sex workers to receive sexual gratification. Belfort would never find satisfaction until the inevitability of this all burning down around him proving as the true condemnation of this individual and how his rise and fall naturally progresses speaks to the true power of this film and exactly why Scorsese thoroughly succeeds in bringing this to life. 

Wildly raunchy, over the top, hilarious, demeaning, and so much more The Wolf of Wall Street is a whole lot of movie and within it packs quite the American tale. It wraps up this ideal shallow individuals would strive for as some ideal lifestyle and displays the lack of satisfaction it would actually bring. Wrapped up in all the confetti, drugs, sex, and perversion involved we have individuals who simply cannot fill this void and try everything they can to do so even if it leads to their eventual downfall. Truly as American as a film can get and one that gets better with each subsequent rewatch, putting it firmly in the upper echelon of a stunning filmography by the impeccable Martin Scorsese.