4 stars out of 5
Take The Great Gatsby plus Wall Street plus Glengarry Glen Ross, blend them in a Goodfellas framework, and out comes The Wolf of Wall Street. Scorsese seems pumped up by the fascinating real-life story being told here, and delivers one of his strongest films in a long, long while. He’s helped immensely in that pursuit by an absolutely dynamite performance from Leonardo DiCaprio.
Didn’t these financial guys learn anything from the classic mafia films of Scorsese, Coppola, DiPalma, etc.? Drugs are extremely tempting but they will always lead to your downfall. Always. And DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort has it extra bad, because as he tells us early on, he’s also addicted to money.
At a running time of three hours, the film is probably a bit too long, and maybe dwells too much on the debauchery of Belfort’s “good years” (often cleverly and effectively soundtracked by raw old blues: Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, etc.). But perhaps there’s a method to Scorsese’s madness: We’re exhausted by Belfort’s wild lifestyle long before he is—any trace of admiration or envy the audience might have is washed away—and we wait for that other shoe to drop.
Through it all, DiCaprio is a powerhouse, firing on some cylinders I didn’t even know he had. He starts out here completely believable as an innocent 22-year-old seduced by the teachings and charisma of Matthew McConaughey (in a short but yet again brilliant portrayal). And then, after a short road block, Belfort and Leo are off to races. The physicality of his performance is something to behold. He bobs, he weaves, he shouts, twitches, drools, dances, falls. His ankles buckle. Leo evokes Arnie Grape and Jack Dawson and some kind of anti-Howard Hughes. (Belfort feeds off the camaraderie, the idolatry, of those around him.) We watch him rise and rise and rise and rise and then fall hard, real hard—and he’s still not done. He’s a complete and utter prick but we can’t help but pull for him until, nope, we can’t do it anymore. Best Actor of the year is a strong possibility here.
Jonah Hill dives with gusto into a weirdo, not-too-likable role as Belfort’s second-in-command. Kyle Chandler is back in good-guy mode and it’s comforting having him there. (A scene between him and Leo on a yacht positively bristles.) Good to see Rob Reiner, but he and Jon Favreau don’t get too much to do. (Weird to have undeveloped characters in a 180-minute film.) Jean Dujardin gets to speak this time. This is two days in a row that I’ve seen Nucky’s brother Eli in a movie; I guess it helped that much of Scorsese’s regular crew are behind the scenes, including Boardwalk Empire‘s Terence Winter writing the script. And in a nice coup, Fran Lebowitz has a cool little cameo as a judge.
As we watch the sense of invincibility of these 1990s Wall Street creeps—the lack of remorse, the cult-like mania of chasing that dollar—the economic downturn of 2008 comes into much clearer focus. But this isn’t just a cautionary tale. You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, you’ll get angry. It’s a hell of a piece of filmmaking.
Jack Silbert, curator