The Wolf of Wall Street Review

A toast from Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures

The Wolf of Wall Street

A+

A review by Frederick Cholowski

It’s amazing that at the tender age of 71 Martin Scorsese continues to reinvent himself. A few years ago he stepped into his first attempt at a children’s film in the beautiful Hugo and now he steps into his first attempt at overt comedy since After Hours with The Wolf of Wall Street. The result is a film that’s bursting with energy and walks the tight rope between sidesplittingly hilarious and the ferociously angry. There is never a dull moment in the nearly three hours of cinema Scorsese presents, an amazing achievement and one of 2013’s absolute best.

The Wolf of Wall Street follows the life of stock broker Jordan Belford (Leonardo Dicaprio), average family man who looks to make it big and get rich fast on Wall Street. He is picked up by a big firm early on run by Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) who mentors Belford and gives him his lessons of Wall Street. Just as Belford gains his license Black Monday hits and Belford is out of work. Soon after he starts on penny stocks, eventually figuring out he can fraudulently push them and thus starts his own company along with his seriously creepy and drug addicted new partner Donnie (Jonah Hill). Together they grow the company to great heights and very quickly Belford transforms from family man to massive party boy. He sleeps with strippers, gets hardcore into drugs and divorces his first wife in favor for a hot blond model Naomi (Margot Robbie). The quick rise of Belford’s empire quickly amasses attention with FBI Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) who looks to bring down Belford and the company he put together.

For a three hour film The Wolf of Wall Street sure moves. The film sprints from plot point to plot point with a ferocity leaving a wave of dark hilarity in its wake. The film beautifully hides its jokes within its plot points and character analysis as they come less from overt gags but rather within the analysis of the stupidity of the characters the film presents. It ultimately gives the film a lightning feel, one of nearly pure energy, as it places moments that done in any other film or context would be dark and disturbing and transformers them into something of utter hilarity.

A lot of this comes from the brilliant script from Boardwalk Empire creator Terrence Winter. Lots of the energy of this film is found within his dialogue which sparkles at every turn providing some truly great monologues including the always snappy, self mocking voice over from Belford and the great speech McConaughey’s character makes at the beginning. The characters are allowed to attempt to talk smart but never actually seem to achieve intelligence in their speech, as they often talk about trivial matters or make consistently dumb decisions under pressure. Winter’s script also never lets these characters off the hook both plot wise and audience perception wise. These are dumb people who try to talk smart, who try to get rich through despicable means but keep making mistakes through over extravagance and plain old stupidity and Winter’s script never holds back from depicting it in a snappy and hilarious manner.

Another source of pure energy and greatness comes from the utterly unhinged performance from Leonardo DiCaprio. This is the best performance that DiCaprio has delivered yet as it brings him from one insane set piece to the next and asks him to be as crazy and comedic as possible. There is no restraint in this performance, it’s big and hilarious at every turn yet at the same time Dicaprio manages to find nuance within the madness. It’s a performance of sheer brilliance that carries both the film and DiCaprio’s career forward.

The Supporting performances aren’t too shabby either. Jonah Hill feels perfectly cast as his strangely funny often times oddly creepy Donnie seems like the performance that fills all his earlier tropes and expands on them. Mathew McConaughey is only in about three scenes the entire film but is fantastic in all of them as well he provides one of the most memorable speeches in the entire film. Margot Robbie also does some great supporting work managing to make the role of Belford’s second wife into a very sympathetic one. There are other great small supporting turns as well including a brilliant small performance from the great Rob Reiner who plays a character with many interesting gears and appearences from Spike Jonze and Jon Favreau to help spice up the cast.

As usual though the direction of Scorsese is probably the best part of the film comes through the style and direction provided by the magnificent Scorsese. The camera is moving around and the cuts come quick and fast giving the film the kinetic nature the script requires. Scorsese also gives the film a similar, yet updated visual and audio style found in Goodfellas providing an energetic camera mixed with some of the time pop music. It’s an aggressive directing style and brings out both the hilarity and anger of the script exceptionally well. No one can do it quite as well as Scorsese and it shows throughout The Wolf of Wall Street.

The Wolf of Wall Street is an intense and hilarious three hour ride. The energy of the film is off the wall through the mix of a great script, great acting and the amazing direction of Scorsese. The Wolf of Wall Street is most amazing because it shows that at 71 Martin Scorsese doesn’t only still have it, but instead can make new and more out there films that continue to redefine what the great director can accomplish.