The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

[batmagadanleadoff]

The Wolf of Wall Street is a technically stunning, gripping roller coaster ride of a film moviegoers have come to expect from director Marty Scorsese. Clocking in at about three hours, Wolf never stops entertaining. But despite its length, or perhaps because of it, I found it somewhat repetitive and shallow -- making the same points over and over. Like a Chinese Food dinner, I felt unsatisfied and wanting more. Still, on a purely visceral level, Wolf delivers. Watch for a show stealing single scene performance from Matthew McConaughey in the style of Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, which I thought was the movie's most illuminating and thought provoking scene.

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P.S. The trailer is edited for language. In the movie, the Jonah Hill character says "money taped to your tits", not "boobs".


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[Guest themetfairy]

I think the repetitiveness and length hurt the film, It would have been easy to trim 30-45 minutes off of this, and it would have been a much better movie as a result.

That said, I basically agree with batmags. The scenes are beautifully crafted and there are some terrific performances.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Well-crafted, polished to a fine sheen, stocked to the rafters with fine performances big and small (Jonah Hill, DiCaprio, and a couple of the scummy friends chief among them), and, ultimately, not all that illuminating. Like Goodfellas played for laughs, really. Which is pretty clever and, to borrow a phrase from Rob Reiner's character in the flick, kind of obscene.

I wonder if the excessive excess-- from the untrimmed, improv-heavy stuff with Jonah Hill to the tits-on-tits-on-tits to the protracted, hamhanded ship metaphors-- was by design, meant to illuminate the upshot of the conspicuous-consumption ethos, and deliberately leave the viewer with a too-much-candy feeling; I'm not so sure it was, but, hey, if so... mission accomplished. I do find it a little strange that the filmmakers focused so much-- and so much and so much-- on the allure/depravity of drug use and hookers and over-the-top-unhinged-debauchery, and pooh-poohed the details of the calamitous, fuck-'em-I'll-spend-their-money-better-than-them business. Like, forget that far-reaching, life-ruining stuff... they hoarded vintage Quaaludes, for God's sake!

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I do find it a little strange that the filmmakers ... pooh-poohed the details of the calamitous, fuck-'em-I'll-spend-their-money-better-than-them business. Like, forget that far-reaching, life-ruining stuff.... !

Are you referring to the film's failure to explain the nuts and bolts of the stock frauds perpetrated? Or that the film ignored the POV of the victims? Or both. Or something else.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Yes, both. Or anything else.

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Yes, both. Or anything else.

From what I've read, those omissions were deliberate. The thinking was that properly explaining the frauds would bog down the film's flow. I tend to agree with that. I've seen my share of Wall Street TV documentaries on Wall Street scams and American Greed type shows and the frauds are never explained properly. I'm always left with more questions than answers.

[ashie62]

Not relative to what really went on at Stratton Oakmont...just over the top in general..

2000's Boiler Room with Giovani Ribisi. Vin Diesel and Ben Affleck blow it away...

[TransMonk]

I caught this yesterday. The shots and soundtrack are great (as one would come to expect from Scorsese). The acting performances are top-notch all around as well...one of my faves from DiCaprio in his career.

This flick is not as deep as some Scorsese films and does have a little more farce, but I found the whole thing to be entertaining even given it's length.

I'd be OK with not seeing Leo in a Scorsese film for a while, though. They are cultivating a Depp/Burton relationship that could keep things from staying fresh.

[Frayed Knot]

Pretty much agree with what seems to be the consensus here: entertaining without being too deep.
I didn't even mind the length so much because it at least kept moving right along even if it was not always moving towards something all that new. The problem was I kept comparing it to GOODFELLOWS [DiCaprio in Liotta's role, etc. - especially during the narration/talking to the camera parts] and unlike that one you just don't care as much about the characters even though, for all the sleaziness of these guys, at least they weren't killing people on a regular basis.

[Vic Sage]

Wallowing in depravity for 3 hours didn't entertain me.

I have nothing against depravity, mind you... certainly not while i'm indulging in it. I just don't find 3rd-party depravity entertaining. The repetitive, over-the-top farce made me weary; DiCaprio's inspirational monologues were not thrilling (like Baldwin's in GlenGarry) or charming (like Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry), or even particularly funny, they were just self-conscious and heavy-handed "this-is-what-these-people-were-about" moments, to underline the themes; and the comeuppance for this collection of despicable cretins was entirely unsatisfying.

And by failing to even attempt to explain the massive and institutional criminality of Wall St (then and now), it really lets the whole industry off the hook and chalks it all up to just the excesses of some greedy psychos. But what the movie chose not to do is a separate issue. It's just that what it did choose to do was repulsive and tedious more than it was funny and/or insightful.

As for the ongoing DiCaprio/Scorsese collaboration, I have no problem with director/actor relationships. It worked for John Ford and John Wayne, Hitchcock and Stewart, Scorsese and DeNiro, and i even like alot of the Burton/Depp films, to name just 4. But I've never really liked a single Scorsese / DiCaprio movie. Whatever is good in GANGS OF NY is good despite DiCaprio; AVIATOR is just awful; SHUTTER ISLAND is interesting but ultimately disappointing, and DEPARTED is OK, thanks to Nicholson, but not up to Scorsese's other gangland movies. I just don't think DiCaprio's boyishness enhances Scorsese's brutal, dark POV, and vice versa.