"Coke and hookers". When fresh-faced stockbroker newbie Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) sits down with his first boss (Matthew McConaughey), this is the advice he is told will keep him sharp in the stock game. Jordan took the advice to heart, and in a few years he built his own brokerage firm - Stratton Oakmont - a kingdom paid for with coke and hookers. Every day the Stratton Oakmont offices were a den of depravity, with brokers filching money away from their sap clients by day, and wild parties by night. Jordan was the Jay Gatsby of debauchery, and his addiction to sex and drugs was only outmatched by his addiction to success. But of course, not everything Stratton Oakmont did was strictly legal, making Jordan the subject of an FBI investigation.
"The Wolf Of Wall Street" is like a drug racing through your bloodstream. As Jordan and his partner Donnie (Jonah Hill) tumble deeper and deeper into this wanton life, director Martin Scorsese matches the rhythm and tempo of their accelerated heartbeats, placing us right in the mindset of these shifty dealers. As is customary in his films, Scorsese has his main character narrate throughout, sometimes even addressing the camera directly. In Jordan's narration, we truly get a sense of the fleeting nature of his lifestyle. He moves between topics so seamlessly it's hard to think he even comprehends them. At one point he flippantly points out how one of his workers married a girl that everyone in the office had sex with, and that two years after he killed himself. This story is treated like a humorous footnote in Jordan's speech, as he continues to talk about his other whims and fancies.
There is a surprising amount of comedy in "The Wolf Of Wall Street". Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a terrific performance full of drug-fueled charisma, and uses his body to get some great laughs. One scene of DiCaprio facing off against Jonah Hill when both are wrecked on quaaludes is perhaps the greatest use of physical comedy in a movie in years. At the same time, Scorsese doesn't paint these larger-than-life men in a positive light, making it very clear that they are aberrations of nature. It may seem nice to have what they have, but when you see how their success has turned them into addicts you can't help but want to stay away.
"The Wolf Of Wall Street" is far too long, clocking in at three hours long. While it could have been trimmed down a bit, none of the time is wasted. Scorsese, working off a great script from Terence Winter, was the only person that could have told this story and have it work. This is a brilliantly crafted, funny, and shocking movie that will cross many audiences personal boundaries of tastefulness.
