The Wolf of Wall Street

[imp]

This is a highly entertaining film, though I'm not sure it's an especially good one. It's at least half an hour too long, and it's relentless in its portrayal of greed and debauchery. Maybe the idea is to show, not tell, but at times it edges dangerously close to a glorification of Wall Street culture. It's funny, very funny in places (Jonah Hill's presence alone always sets me up to start laughing), but that's sometimes part of the problem - you're laughing too much to worry about the people never shown in this movie, the ones who got royally ripped off by these selfish, avaricious cunts. Their only mention comes in passing, right at the end.

There are some fantastic individual scenes, though - my favourite was the protagonist on his yacht with the FBI agent who is investigating him. The quaalude OD scene was simultaneously intense, distressing, and darkly amusing. And at least there is no Big Redemptive Moment, no sentimentality, and no preaching, which is what you expect from Scorsese tagged up with a Sopranos scriptwriter.

7 out of 10.

[Sexual Chocolate]

The Wolf of Wall Street

imp wrote: ... at least half an hour too long, and it's relentless in its portrayal of greed and debauchery. Maybe the idea is to show, not tell, but at times it edges dangerously close to a glorification of Wall Street culture... you're laughing too much to worry about the people never shown in this movie...

Yeah, I agree with the parts quoted. The audience becomes sympathetic to those cunts. I worry that it appeals to middle class America the way Scarface or Goodfellas appeals to those born in humbler surroundings. And it's basically just a shit, vastly inferior version of Goodfellas.

Might've enjoyed it if they'd focused more on the Fed investigating him and turned it into a battle of wits based on similar characters with different moral outlooks. There was a bit of this but for the length of the film (how many snorting off flesh scenes do we need to see?) it was negligible. They alluded to stuff about the Fed that was fascinating. That scene you mentioned was easily the highlight of the film for me.

4/10

[garcia]

The Wolf of Wall Street

i'm not sure i agree that it glorifies wall street in an irresponsible way. the characters all come across as massive cunts. i took it more as a satire on their moronic, hedonistic way of life. even when they think they're having a good time it's actually horrible, like that head-shaving scene, where you see the secretary counting the money, her head all in tatters. as for the numberless unseen victims, there's an early scene when the first wife brings up the awkward fact that belfort is preying on poor people, but rather than confront the moral implications of what he's doing he decides to start preying on rich people instead.

i am predisposed to like any movie that keeps me laughing for three hours though. di caprio and hill are brilliant in it.

[Ray de Galles]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I really enjoyed it. A bit surprised about quite how good it was given some middling reviews and comments about the lengthy running time.

Great cast; Di Caprio, Pressly, Reiner and McConaughey all excellent but Jonah Hill steals the show.

.

[Borracho]

The Wolf of Wall Street

It's complete trash, but it's very, very funny. Long stretches of it reminded me strongly of those glitzy tropical-island videos that Russell Mulcahy directed for Duran Duran in the early 1980s.

The quaaludes scene at the country club, and then Di Caprio tying himself in knots with the telephone cord at his house, was the high point. Di Caprio was very well cast in general. He has an incredibly smug physiognomy to begin with. He probably is exceedingly smug as a person in real life, given the nature of his existence. So you could hardly find anybody better to play a scumbag yuppie drowning in money.

The one thing I didn't really like was the music (compiled by Scorsese's old crony Robbie Robertson). Five seconds of a song, then immediately on to something else, then another, then another. That's a ludicrous way to put together a soundtrack. And some of the choices were downright weird -- one of the arrest scenes was played out to the strains of, wait for it, Mrs Robinson. WTF?

It's very enjoyable though. Mrs AB2 disliked it and stopped watching after about an hour. "It's a guys movie -- no, actually, it's a cunts movie," she said. There's no real answer to that.

[Ray de Galles]

The Wolf of Wall Street

The version of 'Mrs Robinson' used was by The Lemonheads, which at least makes it much closer to being contemporaneous to the scene in the movie.

[multipleman78]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I thought it was marvellous. The scenes with Dicaprio speaking to his staff were electrifying and Jonah Hill was outstanding.

[RobW]

The Wolf of Wall Street

DiCaprio is electrifying and ably supported by Jonah Hill. I've seen it described as a 'black comedy' but frankly to me it had a lot more in line with something like 'American Pie' or 'Anchorman' (there's some scene fairly early on where Belfort sounds just like Ron Burgundy).
It was very funny in places, the scene in which Belfort is trying to get into his Lambo whilst off his tits on Quaaludes was hysterical, but a lot of it reminded me of Gilliam's 'Fear and Loathing' adaptation. It gets bogged down halfway through, the drugged up party scenes get tiresome and the laughter dries up.
Lovely to see Reiner and Lumley on the big screen, but I agree with Incidental Contact, that I would have liked to have seen more focus on the investigation. The scene on the yacht is excellent.
If anything, it made me want to watch Boiler Room again.

[Ray de Galles]

The Wolf of Wall Street

Harry Truscott wrote: I really enjoyed it. A bit surprised about quite how good it was given some middling reviews and comments about the lengthy running time.

Great cast; Di Caprio, Pressly, Reiner and McConaughey all excellent but Jonah Hill steals the show.

.

I should fess up here that I spent the whole movie and about a week afterwards thinking the female lead was Jaime Pressly who looked even better than I remembered her in 'My Name is Earl' (and without the fake breasts I recalled her having) around ten years earlier.

Of course, it turns out it was Margot Robbie not Pressly. I don't blame myself that much though;

[Come along, Min]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I would like to watch it again real soon. Most enjoyable.

There was so much content that I couldn't quite take it all in. A bit like Casino in the sense that subsequent viewings of that film revealed it as something other than the sunny Goodfellas it first appeared. It feels like they could have cut a bit here and there.

I'm not sure it needed more of the Fed storyline as much as some greater tension relating to his comeuppance, which when it comes feels a bit damp squiby. How that would have happened without making the main protagonists more sympathetic I'm not sure.

The final scene and shot of all those eager faces wanting to know the secret to his success is decent, Scorcese asking us to sell that pen and that, holding the mirror up to his audience

[Slightly Brown]

The Wolf of Wall Street

It's absolutely brilliant. Proper ha-ha. These people are fantastically appalling. I assumed that was the point? As has already been said: show, don't tell. This picture does that wonderfully. It's too long, though...by about half an hour. DiCaprio is oh-oh-i'll-buy-everything-you're-selling good. So good. But then he's been really good for a long time now.

[steveeeeeeeee]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I watched last night, definetly one of the funniest fims I've seen for some time. As many have mentioned, the ludes OD scene, especially the Popeye bit, had me in stitches.

[anton pulisov]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I walked out after about an hour and a half. Boring film, just endless scenes of boobs and cocaine.

[San Bernardhinault]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I saw this a couple of days back. One more left to go before I've seen the full set of Best Picture films now.

In general, I thought it was utterly hilarious. But I'm not sure it's a great film. It was too long, of course, and said nothing about the human condition. It mostly felt like a message about cocaine - great fun and bouncing along and it feels wonderful but it's utterly shallow and vacuous and you lose all moral compass.

Which is why I think it didn't need more of the FBI or Securities investigations. That would divert from the amoral bounciness.

The weirdest thing to me was, after watching the ropey Gatsby adaptation earlier this year also with Di Caprio, that this really felt a lot like the same film, with just a slightly different veneer and plot.

[anton pulisov]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I spent my one and a half hours waiting for the plot to start and for the characters to develop. OK, so these guys are greedy morons, they like strippers and generally treating people like shit. That was established after one or two party scenes. I don't know why I need 20 more boob scenes for it to be established further. It was getting on my tits. (Ha!) I thought I had walked into a longer and uncut version of American Pie.

Watch Catch Me If You Can if you haven't already. It's a similar DiCaprio film but without the gratuitous nudity and drugs every five seconds. The FBI bit of the plot is much more developed and the character development is better. And you have Christopher Walken and Tom Hanks in it as well, who both turn in a good performance. Hanks is top drawer as usual.

[Outside Agent]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I enjoyed it. But that's because after about 30mins I gave up taking the characters and plot-line seriously, such was the outrageous depictions of cocaine snorting and hookers. The cameo from MConaughey at the beginning and the brilliant exchange on the boat between Di Caprio & the detective showed that there really was a great movie in there, but these avenues weren't really explored further. And the scene with Di Caprio & Hill waiting to come up then feeling the effects when the drugs kicked-in was like something pinched from Human Traffic. It was a wasted twenty minutes. It was the greed, not the drugs, that was fuelling the behaviour of the characters, so it didn't make sense trying to drag out a few laughs showing a numb Di Caprio trying to crawl back to his car.

Not a bad movie, at all. Enjoyable overall, but the movie's focus should have been on the character's personalities in the rise & fall environment, not just showing the hedonism accompanying it. It could have been a real classic.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

The Wolf of Wall Street

Don't think I've ever had two power naps in a cinema before. Plot was disappointing and the whole thing was just boring with the exception of the boat scene. Di Caprio's character is just so unlikeable, I can't think of a single redeeming feature.

[Borracho]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I don't think you're really meant to like him though. He's just a cunt.

[Come along, Min]

The Wolf of Wall Street

It and many other films could do with an intermission too. I remember intermissions when I was younger, cant think when they stopped. Long time ago I guess.

[Ray de Galles]

The Wolf of Wall Street

They were normally between the main film and it's supporting feature though, no?

[Come along, Min]

The Wolf of Wall Street

I cant remember

[Felicity, I guess so]

The Wolf of Wall Street

The full version of the new von Trier Nymphomaniac screened with two 15 min intermissions in Edinburgh last week.

(One of my students went- as you can guess, the new bunch are a great improvement on those moaned about in threads past)

[Seven Saxon Kings]

The Wolf of Wall Street

Selected Ambient Works 85-92 wrote: I don't think you're really meant to like him though. He's just a cunt.

But that's the problem. Most villains these days have some redeemable features if they're the central character - if not exactly positive characteristics then at least some personal charisma, like Tony Montana for example.

Perhaps I'm too used to characters like Walter White who are constantly conflicted and multi-dimensional. But if you're going to base a whole film around a character who's a one dimensional arsehole, then you surely at least need charismatic good guys chasing him that you can get behind emotionally. In The Wire, for example, Marlo is evil in a pretty one-dimensional way but you get behind the people going after him, both Omar and the cops. Whereas who gives a crap about these arrogant and boring suits going after DiCaprio's character?

[Seven Saxon Kings]

The Wolf of Wall Street

Vaguely spoilery:

You know, the film is both too long and too short at the same time.

Too long because it's boring as hell, but too short because it also missed out bits that might have made me connect with it in some way. Like more of the backstory of the police going after him - or if they'd spent a bit of time showing him struggling financially in his early days to better justify his thirst for money.

[Daze]

The Wolf of Wall Street

But Marlo is a psychopathic murdering drug-dealer and that is knocked over your head over and over again. You see over and over again how his horrible actions affect those around him and his community regardless of intent.

You never see that in The Wolf of Wall Street because it`s not the point. The movie is a comedy, not a serious dramatization of wall street or a commentary on greed. It`s saying "Hey! look at these hilarious douchebags being rich assholes! come watch actors you love engage in ridiculous acts of debauchery! This whole movie reminds you of the time you did all of the drugs!" What's not to love? not to mention It's incredibly well directed and is the best performance DiCaprio has ever given.