Technical assessment: 3.5
Moral assessment: 2
MTRCB rating:
R 16
CINEMA rating:
V 18
Twenty-two year-old Jordan
Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a Wall Street broker who just like any devoted
family man works hard to fulfill his hunger for a comfortable life. Unfortunately, the stock market crashes
on the very day he earns his license, causing him to lose his job. However, he has learned the ropes well
enough to reinvent himself, and soon lands a position in an obscure “penny
stocks” company on Long Island that gives huge commissions. His slick ways, glib tongue, and drive
to get rich quick are his greatest spurs in that ill-regulated branch of the
finance industry, propelling him to ill-gotten wealth until he establishes his
own company, ritzily named “Stratton Oakmont”, with a handful of money-minded
cronies led by Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill).
Attaining such wealth that he never even dreamed of dreaming of, Belfort
is changed, dumps his wife to get a new one every man will drool over (Margot
Robbie), and acquires expensive vices to match his status. But Stratton Oakmont won’t remain in
obscurity for long; when FBI agent Greg Coleman (Kyle Chandler) opens a file on
Belfort, rough sailing begins.
The
wolf of Wall Street is not a documentary but a fictionalization of
Jordan Belfort’s self-serving memoir by the tandem of Martin Scorsese and
Terence Winter. Belfort, a
white-collar criminal fueled by drugs, greed and sex, emerges—through Winter’s
screenplay and Scorsese’s direction—as an ambitious conman who’s given to
excess but who nonetheless charms his audience into stupefaction. DiCaprio plays a character he had never
done before, in control of the world by day, controlled by his weaknesses by
night, and a slave to his appetites 24/7.
DiCaprio’s untethered performance as a drug addict (particularly in that
scene where he hits his wife and endangers his daughter’s life) is more than
convincing—it’s as though Scorsese pulled all the stops and let loose the
talented actor to play the depraved anti-hero. While in that scene where Belfort tries to bribe an
FBI agent while in his yacht, DiCaprio’s subtlety as an actor is beyond
admirable. The sets and the
cinematography blend to render powerful scenes depicting man’s various states
of servitude to materialism and the flesh.The wolf of Wall Street reeks with sexual stench and profanity; it glorifies amorality and glamorizes vice. There is one moment when a shadow of contrition whiffs by—when having survived a sea disaster Belfort thinks God has given him a chance to change his unscrupulous ways—but this is swallowed up by the orgiastic excess of his lifestyle. When justice finally catches up with him he gets a three year prison term at the end of which the arrogant Belfort launches his new career as a speaker motivating future salesmen. Is the movie to be condemned? Not the movie, but the reality which it parodies. Despite the depravity and debauchery portrayed by it, The wolf of Wall Street is an indictment of greed. But instead of passing a moral judgment on that reality, Scorsese—a Catholic—presents it as a black comedy of America’s addiction to money-making at all cost. There are two small voices Belfort hears but fails to listen to—his father’s which is the voice of reason, and the FBI agent Denham’s which is the voice of principles. Often, in the movies, the visible overpowers the audible. This could happen with The wolf of Wall Street; only mature and discerning viewers will catch Scorsese’s cautionary tale it tells.
