The Wolf of Wall Street

Now we finish off 2013 with a film that almost didn't make it to 2013. It's The Wolf of Wall Street, an utterly insane display of rich men behaving badly.

Martin Scorsese's comedy of excess is about Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker also known as "The Wolf of Wall Street." Belfort also wrote a book of that title, from which Terence Winter's screenplay is derived from. For this movie, Belfort is played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Belfort begins his Wall Street career in a firm which falls on Black Monday. He joins a minuscule firm and makes a fortune selling penny stocks. He starts his own firm, Stratton Oakmont, and becomes filthy rich. And by filthy rich, I mean filthy and rich.

Belfort makes a fortune manipulating the trust of naive buyers. He does so with the help of right-hand Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and his Brain Trust of Wall Street movers. Stratton Oakmont revels in debauchery; but then, FBI man Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) gets on the case.

And imagine all this going on for one minute short of three hours (that it ran longer at first was why its release date was in doubt).

As Belfort, DiCaprio also narrates the film ala Henry Hill in Scorsese's Goodfellas. His narration lets us know what kind of guy he is: not a good one. He's greedy, manipulative, a drug-user and treats people around him like dirt. The film doesn't hide his amoralism at all. At the very least, the film doesn't want you to accept him as a role model.

Scorsese's constant editor Thelma Schoonmaker contributes to this presentation well. In one scene, Belfort drives home high out of his mind seemingly without a scratch. A few scenes later, we see that's not the case. Belfort saves Donnie from choking in-between those scenes by getting high on cocaine ... punctuated to a Popeye cartoon! Overall, the film plays the effects of drug use for laughs.

The Wolf of Wall Street is an extreme morality play about the insanity of Greed. And it gets to the point rather well. Whether or not you can stand this movie depends on whether or not you can stand a three hour display of debauchery. Just know what you're getting yourself into before you go.