Review – The Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the memoir of shady stock broker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a black comedy about the debauchery and embezzlement on the floor of the Wall Street brokerage-giant Stratton Oakmont. The film follows Belfort’s career from an internship at a blue-chip brokerage firm to the founding of the firm that made him a multimillionaire, and eventually his downfall as his criminal misdeeds catch up to him.

At the surface Martin Scorsese‘s direction is predictably vibrant and clever: you could happily re-watch this film over again just to watch out for all the flourishes in the camera-work and editing. But the substance of his direction is blunt and manipulative. Scorsese knows audiences are comfortable laughing at Wall Street stock-brokers – is there a safer target? – so he leans heavily on the comic relief to win over the audience’s sympathies. At one point we’re given an extended, fantastically hilarious sequence where Belfort is attempting to crawl home after having over-dosed on Quaaludes. It’s there because it’s fantastic cinema that manages to shame both Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Hangover all at once, but it’s also there to get us on side with Belfort right before one of the film’s most pivotal moments. Belfort is little more than a con artist and a criminal, but the film nevertheless celebrates him as a hero for his avarice and excess, and what little scope is given to self-reflection is constantly undermined by some heavy-handed cues.

None of this is to detract from what is a solidly entertaining film. Matthew McConaughey steals the first third of the film with a minor role as Belfort’s mentor, DiCaprio enthrals with his fresh-faced vigour and charm, Jonah Hill brings all the glory and muster of his performances in This is the End and Moneyball respectively, and Australian Margot Robbie is deliciously spiteful as Belfort’s wife Naomi Lapaglia. (In this film, could she be anything else?) There is plenty of enjoyment and hilarity to be had in this film, although you might not feel very good about yourself for guffawing at some of the more confronting jokes.

The Wolf of Wall Street is a colourful and well-constructed piece of cinema, and it’s not hard to see why it is getting some Oscar attention. But even if it weren’t for the 2008 financial crisis this film’s exploration of corporate embezzlement would have seemed inappropriate and not particularly hard hitting. The Wolf of Wall Street is not a warts-and-all portrayal of Wall Street vice but is, at its core, an uninteresting brush-up of a man who has already received too much attention.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slj4-Sv-YNA&w=400]